Wash days and why they suck: Part 1

There are 2 definitions of wash days that I ascribe to. The first is the one that my fellow naturalistas agree upon. The second is what makeup artists and makeup lovers alike will agree upon. Both types are time-consuming and almost guarantee you won’t be leaving the house that day. I’ll go through the steps of both in this post.

Makeup Brush Wash Day

The first step here is to gather the array of brushes you’ve used that week. After my brush collection got to a certain size, I had to keep separate containers to be able to differentiate which were clean and which were dirty. I had been wasting time rewashing perfectly clean brushes. -_-

Next is setting up your wash station. Brushes, brush soap, towel(s), and any other device to aid in your cleaning situation. My personal preferences for brush soap and cleaning aids are Dr. Bronner’s Liquid Castile Soap and Sigma’s Brush Cleaning Glove.

Now that we’re all set up, we can begin to clean. This is where I typically scold myself for not, at the least, spot cleaning my brushes or waiting the whole week, sometimes 2, before attempting to clean my brushes. My foundation brushes have a weeks worth of product soaked in, my concealer and gel eyeliner brushes are now dried stiff with caked up product. And lord help me if I got creative with the eyeshadow because if I used anything bright or containing glitter, I want to kick myself. Thankfully the Dr. Bronner’s Castile Soap cuts through the different makeup products quite easily and the Sigma Brush Cleaning Glove really gets up in the bristles quite well, which has cut down my brush cleaning time drastically. This used to be a much longer and arduous process when I was going in barehanded, armed with nothing more than either baby shampoo, Sephora brush cleaner, or E.L.F. brush cleaner.

Now after the brushes are thoroughly washed and rinsed, it’s time to move on to the Beauty Blenders. These are my least favorite to clean. They soak up both whatever makeup product you use with them, but also any soap you use the clean them. So even though the castile soap breaks up and removes the makeup, rinsing all of the soap out of the Beauty Blender is a pain. It’s a whole bunch of rinse, squeeze, rinse, squeeze, until the water finally runs clear. My hand sometimes starts to hurt after this goes on for a few sets.

After all the cleaning is done it’s now time to arrange the brushes to dry properly. It’s best to reshape them, then rest them at an angle so that the water runs downwards and out of the bristles. I use a round brush case I received from BH Cosmetics as both the container to hold my used brushes, but to also prop them up as they dry.

Now to wait for them all to completely dry. This usually takes about a full day. This is why I tend to make brush day, my day to stay in the house.