Cleaning makeup brushes isn’t exactly the most fun task. It’s boring, time consuming, annoying, and can be all around miserable. It makes your hands prune and your skin dries up rapidly. It’s also a necessary evil, as dirty makeup brushes cause breakouts, a common makeup mistake. I’ve been cleaning my brushes the same way for years. I use Cetaphil Gentle Skin Cleanser and I carefully massage the soap into the bristles of my brushes, then follow by swishing the brush around the palm of my hand until the water runs clear. My brushes would always be clean, and smell fresh as well as soft. However, the process of cleaning my brushes was so stressful, that I would have to stagger the days I cleaned certain brushes because I had so many brushes (over 30 brushes). It made cleaning my makeup brushes a nightmare. And it was a nightmare that repeated every week!
So, for the last few years I’ve been suffering from dry hands weekly all in the name of hygiene and squeaky clean brushes. As a huge fan of Sigma Beauty, I recently came across a product that makes cleaning makeup brushes infinitely easier–the Sigma Spa Brush Cleaning Glove. It was a stylish way to keep brushes clean as well as reshape them after washing. It stopped the hands from becoming dry from the brush cleanser. I was all set to purchase the glove until I saw the price. $35? Ain’t nobody got bank for that!
So after sulking around my house for half of fall break I came up with an ingenious idea. What if I made my own Sigma Brush Glove? I drove to the Dollar Store and Joann’s and what I came up with for under $6 is probably the best invention I’ve ever conceived. Although, after further research, I found that many other people had made similar items with cutting boards and clipboards.
I needed something water proof so I picked a plastic plate from the Dollar Store for only 99 cents. Then I headed next door to Joann’s and went to the crafting section and picked up a hot glue gun, extra glue sticks included for only $5.
Now here’s the best part of this invention. I washed the plate thoroughly and then set it out to air dry for about 20 minutes. Then I proceeded to heat up my glue gun and use the glue to make various squiggles and dots all around the plate similar to the glove. The reason that I swirled the glue and made dots as well was so that the plate would be able to clean brushes in various sizes and shapes.
After my plate was done drying, I used it to see how well the plate work, and it worked like a charm! My brushes were clean, my hands stayed dry and the process took far less time than it usually takes me to clean my brushes! Since I made this a month ago, I haven’t used anything else to clean my brushes.