Wooooooooooo congrats on making it through the first week of 2018!  What a nightmare it is when the holidays are all over – all that preparation, all of the gorgeous decorations, all of the incredible food, and for what?  A few extra pounds, a sweater that doesn’t fit, and once mighty pine trees getting turned into mulch.  And what of this cold snap covering the majority of the US?  Here in NYC, the party was definitely over when hurricane-speed winds brought six inches of snow.  Yikes.

Okay, okay, it’s not THAT bad.  If your New Years resolution is to be more grateful (as mine is), then I sincerely hope you got some lovely, pore-reducing, skin-smoothing, glittery, or what-have-you beauty stuff from Santa.  I know I did, and only just started using it too – I have a weird thing about using stuff I get for Christmas during Christmas-time, meaning the week between it and New Years.  It’s like I spoil it or something by using it before the start of the new year.

I digress – there is a point to this, you know, and it’s right up there in the headline.  New Year, new start, yeah?  So, now that all of those holiday parties for which you were slapping on copious amounts of foundation, eyeliner, sparkly shadow, THE WORKS are all over over, it’s the perfect time to give aaalllll of those dirty brushes and tools a good, hard scrub.

Before I actually washed my brushes, I always wondered why people would take things that look semi-delicate and soak it with water.  How would the brush ever go back to its shape?  How could you rinse it enough to really get the soap out?  Obviously, the quality of your brushes will have a lot to do with it.  Chances are, if bristles are falling out when you’re just minding your own business, putting on blush, then they’re certainly not going to hold up when soaked and swished around with brush shampoo.  However, the more I spent on brushes, the less I wanted to take the risk, in some sort of weird, oxymoronic, catch-22, devil’s advocate, I-don’t-get-metaphors sort of way.

Anyway, all it takes is a bit of a gross factor to really want to scrub your brushes like crazy.  For me, it was just teaching really small kids, their wiping their nose on me, and my constant illnesses that made me figure I couldn’t put it off for very long any more.  I always used the one bowl I have that’s white inside (so I could see how well the color/residue was coming off of the brush), and it always took forever, and honestly I never really felt that they were washed as well as they could be.

So, while perusing Amazon (the devil’s company), one of those makeup brush scrubbing mats came up, and I quickly added it to my cart.  Just the idea of that good of a scrub was heavenly, and I was also generally curious about whether or not they actually worked.  Truth be told, I wanted one of these babies, but the $30 price tag seemed a bit extreme, seeing as I’m unemployed and also had no idea, again, if they even made a difference.  The mat I got was basically just a flat version of it.  I can’t find the exact one I got, but it’s pretty much exactly this, except hot pink and it cost half as much.  *shrug*

I was very, very tired when I started this, and using beauty tools to pretend to be a pirate got me through it.  But there it is – me with the mat, as well as the Sephora brush shampoo.  My #1 concern is antibacterial capabilities, which this has.  Also, since my most expensive brushes are Sephora brand, I figured this would be made to work well with those.  I also have, for when I don’t have time for a full shampoo, but drop a brush onto the gross floor or into the equally gross sink, the antibacterial spray that you just spritz on and then wait til it dries.  Not a great choice if you actually have to clean off residue, but good for when you don’t want to get e.coli or something into your eye socket.  NOTE, I have no idea if that spray kills e. coli.

For reference, here are my brushes before:

Since the sits in the sink, I cleaned the sink out first – again, this is a place you regularly spit into, so I’d wipe it out before putting the mat in (we’ll get to disadvantages of the mat in a bit, as this is one).  First, as per usual, I wet the brush – and the mat, figuring that necessary to create any lather.  Then, I put the brush shampoo directly onto the mat as opposed to the brush.

And, yes, I get that I’m telling you all this as if you’re four, or have never washed our brushes before, but that’s sort of the whole point of this blog.  Also, hello, I taught four-year-olds for nine years, so that sort of tone is where I lay.

So, let’s see: Does this mat make any bit of difference?

This was my flat-sided foundation brush that I use all of the time, and the one that I was a bit concerned about rubbing onto a silicone, textured mat.  But, it turned out fine, and it immediately started getting the gunk out really well.  You may notice the singular issue I had with the mat though: Jiggle, jiggle, jiggle.  I, being a person who just impulse buys random things that I am sure will make my life better, did exactly zero research into these mats, and didn’t know there were ones with suction cups on the bottom.  I highly, highly recommend going high end (i.e., $2 more) for one of those.  I’m going to just stick a suction cup on the bottom, maybe.  If I wasn’t holding the phone to video it, I would’ve just used my other hand to hold the mat in place.  I mean, it’s not exactly a hardship, but something to keep in mind.

The other sort of weird thing about these mats is that’s it’s actually hard to find any type of instruction on which brushes to use where, and what section of the mat is for what on the particular one you got, unless it’s written right there on the mat like some of the more high-end versions.  However, after looking up the initial product on Amazon, I saw that the lines on the bottom were a “rinse trough” (I mean, that’s what I’m calling it), and because I just always do what I’m told –

It sort of worked?  Sure?  I felt this need to constantly lift up the mat, drain it, and add more/fresh water, of course, which also deemed it sort of silly.  I might as well hold the brush under the water and rinse it the old-fashioned way.  Though, this may be more gentle than using your hands to flick/move the bristles to get a good rinse.

Those tiny bumps at the bottom, I used for tighter-bristle and smaller brushes, and they certainly worked well; the most fun was anything with a dark color on it.

It’s fun to basically pretend to be watercoloring with your eyeliner brush, filling in every last gap like you’re . . . some famous water colorist.

I definitely think my effort was reduced, with much better results.  Still, I had to bring out the big gun, aka, my Sephora foundation brush.

This brush had an unfortunate run-in with some sunscreen that did not absorb at all, and so I could actually scrape my nail and pick up gunk inside of the bristles – no matter how often I washed it.  It also just felt too oily.  There was definitely some residue on there, and a lot of the impetus behind getting this mat was to fix this once and for all.

Here she goes!

And, after a few moments, this happened:

That’s alllll the goo that was in that brush, the first rinse.  I’d never had that much come off of it using my plain ol’ cereal bowl, so this was pretty great.  I still ended up scrubbing it approximately five times, but it was well worth it in the end AND took way less energy.

It may be a little difficult to tell, but the bristles are way more separated (not as “chunky” as in the before), fluffier, softer, and airier than before.  I’ve never gotten this particular brush to this level, so I consider this whole process a success.

Here’s the before of the brushes again:

And the after:

I think the main difference is the texture of all the brushes; I’d had no idea how much build-up there was until they were all dry and fluffy again.  In the third photo from the left, the small right brush – a concealer brush – looks brand new.  It had been caked with concealer before I washed it (I know, I know, ew and and all that).

Overall, these mats are awesome and I love them.  I got the absolute most basic kind you can get, and it was a total improvement over my usual brush cleaning techniques.  Nearly all of the problems I had with mine are solved by spending anywhere from $2 – $20 more – problems such as, the mat wiggling around, the whole “having to sit in a dirty sink so you have to clean the sink first” thing.  The entire point of cleaning your brushes more thoroughly holds up.

Just a sampling of all the available mats: ones with suction cups, ones with rims so the water doesn’t trip out, big ones, small ones, ones you can wear like a glove if you’re into that, etc.  Don’t forget the Cadillac of brush cleaning mats mentioned above.  Also, when I posted a New Years Day photo to Instagram (follow me there!), a commenter mentioned the bowls they make and sell that are designed to contain that mess from cleaning your brushes while giving them a good scrub.  As I said in my response: Hell yeah, I want one of those.

Whatever your chosen method, get those brushes clean and bacteria-free for the start of this glorious new year. And if you try any of those way cooler methods than the basic one I did, let me know what you think; I’m looking to upgrade soon!

Questions?  Comments?  Tips for a new product to try?  Gotta tell me about your favorite TV show/movie/book for when I start spiraling?
Email this blog here: whatthehellisonmyface@gmail.com