Cleaning Makeup Brushes the MIchelle Phan Way

Trace writes: Let's start with the video that inspired this post!

Squeaky Clean Brushes! by Michelle Phan

She uses the technique she learned from her oil painting class - oil and detergent do mix after all! Interesting, right? It sounds scary though - what if the brush hairs become too oily and fall off?!

But what the heck, I've decided to take the risk and clean ALL my brushes - even the recently washed ones. Methinks Michelle's reputation is too good to give out an awful suggestion. So let's get started with a...

Background: I own a lot of brushes for one person (Dawn has two sets too) and this is because I alternate between tools every week so that I don't need to wash them too often - only twice a month for each brush. 

 My brushes! 

I have a Suesh 28-piece brush set and an assorted loot of ELF, Shu Uemura, Prescriptives, Guerlain, Bare Naturals, Marionnaud (great find!). I clean them using generic shampoo, shampooing and rinsing three times per session. I think this technique is affordable and convenient by itself. I still get the same performance from my brushes and most are still oh-so-soft. But sometimes, I don't get all the pigment out especially on light-haired ends.

So let's see if this new experiment will work out for the best...

Tools:

Olive Oil (mixed with of Ilog Maria's Chamomile Massage Oil so that it smells heavenly!)

Joy Ultra Liquid Cleanser

Pail cover instead of a plate (since I'm cleaning ALL my brushes)

Equal amount of Olive oil + Joy on the pail cover. I had to replenish the mix four times the amount used by Michelle on the video since I have to clean a lot. The technique's pretty icky and I did not like the feeling of swirling dirty brushes on the palm of my hand. 

After 20-30 minutes, I'm done swirling!

I don't have pictures of me rinsing the brushes. But I did use shampoo again just to ensure everything's extra clean, since I am afraid there's a possibility for the olive oil not to get washed off. I rinsed all my brushes twice.

I don't own brush guards (so donate me two sets!!) and being stubborn, I don't want to get four or five glasses to keep my brushes standing upside down. So I just laid them flat on an old towel, and waited 3-4 hours for them to dry.

Result?

All the pigment on my ELF Studio Flat Top Powder brush, which I use on my face to stipple REVLON COLORSTAY Foundation, is gone! The hairs are as black as night!

My Shu Uemura 20 Pony blush brush regained its lost shine and softness (it was beginning to get scratchy out of daily use).

The Guerlain mini-meteorites pink brush looks cute and smells good, too!

But my Marionnaud Foundation brush, unfortunately, didn't like this technique, nu-ah. It retained some of the olive oil and I had to re-wash it again. I guess for silky synthetic foundation and concealer brushes, this method is not good. For animal hair and fluffy vegan brushes, Michelle Phan's brush cleaning technique is fantastic!

Will I do this again? SURE, once a month or every two months at most for deep cleaning. I'll still stick with my former method, because Olive Oil + Liquid Detergent is actually expensive compared to one measely bottle of shampoo.

I hope this helps with your brush cleaning woes!

Cheers,

Trace