Pinterest Brush Cleaning Methods Debunked!

I am always looking for a quicker way to clean my make up brushes. So naturally, like any other girl, I went to Pinterest. 

It doesn't seem like such a big deal when you have a few brushes, but when you are cleaning a lot of brushes it takes a very long time. 

The method I have used for several years and have always had success with is using Dove Soap. I clean everything with hot water, to help kill any bacteria. 

I wet the brush and the bar of soap and swirl it around. I continue doing this until the brush comes out clean. Its quick and easy, and doesn't over dry the brushes.

The First Pinterest method I tried was mixing equal parts olive oil and dish soap. I was very skeptical about putting oil on my makeup brushes, because the last thing I need is more oil on my face. 

 It worked very well and very fast. There was no residue left on the brush and it smelled good. The only downside to this was the fact that it takes a lot of olive oil and dishsoap. You cannot re use the mixture once there is product in it. So basically what it boils down to is olive oil is too expensive. 

See how clean!!!

The next method was part water part white vinegar. This literally did nothing.

Still very dirty, and smelled bad....

Next was baby shampoo and warm water. I have used this method for cleaning brushes before and it works ok if you scrub and scrub. 

I put a quarter sized amount of  baby shampoo in the bottom and fill the rest with hot water.

Filling a glass with water and baby shampoo however, did not work.

The final two are similar methods. 

The first one is Vinegar, Baby Shampoo and Water. Besides the Dove soap method this one is my favorite. You can sit a handful of brushes in this mixture and it will start cleaning (of course you have to swirl the brushes around to get the product out, but you get the idea)

See all the bronzer in the water!

The next is basically the same thing except it isn't baby shampoo its, dish soap. This suds a little more and I think gets the brushes a little bit cleaner. 

Regardless of which method I use, I am sure to rinse the brushes out really well.

The best tip that I can give you is when you are drying your brushes, roll up a towel, lean the handle on the towel and place the bristles down so the water will run out of the brush, This will protect the glue that holds the bristles in the brush handle and it will prolong the overall life of the brush. 

To recap my favorite method is still the Dove soap method, I feel like it just gets the best clean. This is especially important to use when cleaning face brushes (foundation, powder, beauty blender... etc.) because the deep cleaning helps to remove the oils. My second favorite, and one that I will most likely continue to use for cleaning eye brushes is the vinegar and dish soap. Its fairly inexpensive and you can clean multiple brushes at once, so this adds to the convenience factor.