How I | Deep Clean Makeup Brushes

5:19:00 PM mandy 16 Comments

I am really bad when it comes to washing my makeup brushes. I always put off doing this chore because the whole process just takes too long and my hands get all wrinkly & dry afterwards. I usually go through all of my brushes before I am practically forced to clean them.

But the cleaning is inevitable. It is very bad for the skin to always use dirty brushes. So I limit each brush to no more than a week of usage if it is for powder/dry products and at most one use only if it's for cream/liquid/wet products. Typically, with all my brushes, it takes a month or so before another washing is due.

Since I started using makeup brushes, the process of cleaning has always been to put some shampoo onto the brush, lather & swirl on my palm, rinse, and repeat. This is the long way that everyone else is probably used to. A while back all these 'fancy' things like cleansing mitts and such came out. But they were too pricey and unjustifiable for me to try.

Then for some reason, a couple of months ago, I decided to try something different.
I found a plastic cup, put in some  Dr. Bronner's Magic Soap & Daiso Detergent & water into, and made a soapy mixture.
I am not sure how 'innovative' this is but it was new to me!


I dip/dunk my dirty makeup brushes in the mixture multiple times...

*Be sure NOT to do this step too vigorously or else the water will pump through the ferrule (metal part) and might loosen it ... LIGHT DUNKING IS KEY!**

**You could also swirl & swoosh your brushes in the water. It might take a bit longer for makeup to come off. But this action actually works better for smaller makeup brushes.*

***I typically dump out the dirty mixture and make a new one if it turns really cloudy and has a dark-ish color.***

Doing it this way usually takes a lot of the makeup off!
Afterwards I still swirl the brushes on my palm to make sure everything is clean.
Then I rinse it under the faucet, squeeze out the water, and brush out the excess water onto a (paper) towel.

I leave the brushes on a window sill to dry.
My brushes dry even faster in the colder months because most of the radiators in my house are under the windows. I used to place the makeup brushes onto paper towels to dry but didn't like the fact that it sat on something wet for so long. There are the brush drying trees and DIY brush drying hangers which essentially do the same thing, this just isn't upside down and there aren't any extra costs.

I found that by cleaning this way it took me a lot less time to wash everything. & I think it might even use less shampoo. I think...But since I never really measured or anything I am not 100% sure on this point. It just seems like less product would be used. Right?

Do you always dread having to wash your makeup brushes? How do you usually clean them?
If you try this method, let me know how it goes for you! :]

Target Hauling

5:20:00 PM mandy 6 Comments

Erm. So I was probably a teeny bit too confident in my ability to control my impulsive buying habits. It was all going well until I was lured in by a 25% off Real Techniques brushes on target.com a few weeks ago. *shake my first* You...sales...!

I think that Ulta sometimes has better deals for these brushes. But I am not familiar with when Ulta has sales and my impatience got the best of me. Here's all the damage I did:

L to R: Sonia Kashuk Pointed Blending Brush, Sonia Kashuk Duo Fiber Fan Brush, Real Techniques Travel Essentials, Real Techniques Core Collection, Real Techniques Expert Face Brush, Real Techniques Setting Brush

These brushes have been on my wishlist for the longest time. What held me back was that I didn't have access to a physical Ulta or Walmart store. Even though in the end I did order from Target online, there is at least a store accessible to me in case returns had to be made. Luckily, everything I got felt nice enough so I do not mind keeping them all. There were also a couple other brushes from the Real Techniques line that I wanted to get but was unfortunately not available or out-of-stock.

I also bought a 34pc set of Huggable Hangers that I forgot to take a photo of. But that isn't all too exciting to see, right? However, I was a little bummed when I went to Costco the other day and saw that they had a 35pc hangers only set of "No Slip Hangers" for $9.99. While the ones I ordered from Target (the original/brand-name versions) were $17.99. The pricier set also only had 14 hangers plus 10 clips and attachments. What luck I have... *sigh* I can't even return the Huggable Hangers because I already opened and threw away the box it came in.

Of the ones that I got, I feel like I will get the least uses out of the two foundation brushes. But the next on my "To Get" list are the powder brush, blush brush, and kabuki brush.

Has anyone else tried any Real Techniques brushes yet? Any favorites/dislikes?



----------Complaint about Target.com---------- This was my first time ordering from the website. But Bestie C ordered from there a lot recently, so I thought that the Free Shipping minimum must not be too bad. Boy did I think wrong. I wasn't aware of their new policies and tactics to gain more cardholders. Basically, if you sign up for their card you will have (I think) Free Ship along with some other perks. BUT if you are not a cardholder, there are only a limited amount of items that they deemed to be eligible for "Free Shipping over $50".

It took me much so long to decide on what to buy to meet that minimum while also not spending too much overall on the order. Things I saw and thought I would want to keep were not Free Ship Eligible. The ones I saw that were Free Ship Eligible wasn't anything that I wanted or needed. I know it would have been much easier to just pick any random thing and return it but that was really a last resort option.

One thing that really bothered me most was how the site requires you to input all your personal and card information before estimating your shipping fees. I tried to Google what their typical shipping costs were like but didn't have much luck finding anything. Their Help/FAQ page also doesn't say much about prices either.