MAKEUP IS FUN. Cleaning your makeup brushes, however, is a chore worse than any your parents ever made you do as a kid.

Makeup artists always say you should clean your brushes after every use to rid them of rank bacteria, but you hardly have time for that, do you?

Here’s how to make cleaning your brushes less painful when you do decide to do it.

Get a ‘cleaning glove’

Sigma / Maximum Pets Sigma / Maximum Pets / Maximum Pets

You can buy special gloves that make working the dirt out of your brushes a lot easier – but they’re expensive, and a silicone dog grooming glove (which costs about a fiver) does much the same thing for a lot cheaper.

And those silicone brush cleaning mats you’ve seen all the beauty bloggers use? Get a silicone pot holder for €2 in IKEA and you have the same thing. You can thank us later.

Only wet the bristles of the brush

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Don’t let the water reach the metal part when you’re gently swirling the dirt off the brush – water weakens the glue that holds the bristles together, resulting in nasty shedding.

Let the bristles dry on their own

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That means no hairdryers. None.

Leave them all to dry horizontally, ideally off the edge of a counter or windowsill so their shapes are not flattened. Treat them like the little babies they are.

Clean your sponges using a plain old bar of soap

Cleaning sponges seems like a nightmare, but all you really have to do is rub them on a bar of soap. It shouldn’t be this easy, but it is.

Keep your brushes clean in between washes with a spray-on cleanser

You’re probably not going to deep-clean them every week, but a little cleanse in between will keep most of the dirt at bay.

Simply spritz the cleanser on your brushes and wipe them with a tissue – Penneys does a good one for €2.50.

And get the right tools for the deep cleanse, whenever you plan on doing it

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Sometimes there’s nothing for it but to give them a proper clean. You really do not need to splash out on a special brush cleanser – anti-bacterial soap or baby shampoo (and elbow grease) does the job just as well.

Godspeed, and good brush cleansing to you all.

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