Just as how you must cleanse your face every day, you should also remember to clean your makeup and makeup brushes. This becomes more imperative if you’ve just recovered from the flu, or if you lent your makeup to someone. Storing makeup in the bathroom also makes them more prone to contamination. Below are some of our tips on how to clean makeup and brushes.
Lipstick
This is pretty simple – it’s called the ‘alcohol dip’. It’s what the ladies do at the MAC counter when you’re testing out new lipsticks. First, take a Q-tip and scrape away the top layer of the tip of your lipstick. Then, dip the lipstick into a container of alcohol for at least 30 seconds. After, you may allow it to air dry.
Pencils
We’re talking about your eyeliners, eyebrow pencils, and lip liners. Cleaning your eyeliners are especially important because you don’t want to be putting a germ-infested product so close to your eye. The easiest way to clean your pencils is to sharpen them, just enough for the used layer to get removed. If you have retractable pencils, an alcohol wipe or dip would work just fine.
Pressed Powder Products
This covers powder foundation, blushes, bronzers and eyeshadow. You know how sometimes the surface of your powder develops a shiny crust over it? Well, that’s a result of your oils and dirt mixing with the product. If this happens, gently scrape the outer layer so you have the new layer. Then you can do the alcohol spray and allow the product to air dry or you can wipe clean with a tissue. Make sure you regularly clean your powder applicators, too!
Cream Products
How to clean makeup in cream formula is a bit trickier as cream products often attract more dirt because of its texture. Use a clean makeup wedge and gently go across the cream pan with it, picking up dirt and grime as you go along. Make sure you use extra light strokes so you don’t end up picking more of the product. If some of the product and dirt gets caught on the edge, use the other side of the wedge to wipe it clean.
Foundation
In an ideal world, foundation would all come in squeeze tubes and pump bottles. This is a lot easier to clean because all you have to do is use an antibacterial wipe on the tips of the tube or pump. For jar or bottle foundations with no pump, the most hygienic way to go about it is to use a clean metal spatula to ‘scoop’ out the product. Try not to use your bare fingers when getting the product.
Makeup Brushes
There are two ways to clean your makeup brushes – spot clean and deep clean. You can do the deep cleaning weekly using a mix of cleaning agents such as olive oil, baby shampoo or antibacterial dish soap. In between washes, spot clean your brushes by spraying a brush cleanser on a tissue and swirling the brush onto the tissue to remove product build-up.
Then again, how to clean makeup is not always the solution. Sometimes you just have to junk it altogether! If makeup causes irritation, separates or smells bad, it should be headed straight to the trash bin.
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