Don't BRUSH me the wrong way!

My friend recently asked me, "how do you know a good quality makeup brush?" I honestly only know what I've tried and the brands I love are Nars and Sephora Collection for myself. On clients I use MAC, Nars, and Sephora Synthetic brushes. Her question really popped some imspiration..



It's something alot of us forget.. to clean our brushes. I pay tons of money for these baby's and then it slips my mind to clean them twice a month. My brushes I use on clients I clean almost every second, but the ones I use on my own face everyday are starting to look alittle shabby. So today I motivated my behind to antibaterial my everyday brushes.

These are some my brushes I use on the daily:

Top row, From left to right: Bare Minerals Limited Edition Double ended shadow brush (I love it because it's animal print), Stila double ended smudge brush no. 15, Smashbox Bronzing no. 19, Sephora Silver Professionnel Collection Blending no. 10, Sephora Collection Professionnel ergonomic blush brush, Sephora Silver Professionnel no. 40, Sephora Silver Professionnel no. 42, Sephora stippling no. 44, Sephora all over shadow no. 21... Bottom row, left to right: Sephora no. 22, Hana K. Cheek Blending Brush, Sephora brow comb no. 11

Of all these brushes my favorites are my Sephora brow comb, Sephora Professionnel all over shadow no. 21, and Sephora collection ergonomic blush brush.

My least favorites: My Smashbox Bronzing brush was about $45 and it's such poor quality, it's always shedding hairs, which is a huge pet peeve of mine. My Hana K brush also feathers but I paid about $3 for it at Target, so I don't mind.

I washed all the brushes above with a gentle Johnson & Johnson baby shampoo. This shampoo cleans nicely without leaving any residue on my bristles. It's hard to find products that don't have too much alcohol. That's why baby shampoo worked out so well. All these brushes are made with animal hair which makes them very sensitive. So alcohol free products are the best for this type of brush.

Above are my daily synthetic brushes: (from left to right) Sephora Professionnel no. 51, Sephora Professionnel angle liner no. 22 ( I have two of these brushes, one I use for my cream eyeliner and the other I use on my brows), and Sephora no. 24 Smokey eye. You can use alcohol on these brushes because they are made with synthetic materials. I use synthetic brushes on my clients because they can sustain the harshness of alcohol and I would skeeve using a brush on someone I wasn't confident was clean.

Here I'm washing my real haired brushes with baby shampoo. I squeezed the shampoo on my hand and massaged the brush into the palm of my hand:

Animal haired brushes can hold alot of bacteria in the barrel of the bristles. Which is definitely why I should wash my brushes more:

After washing them all I lay them over a counter to let them air dry, which takes about 24 hours. The reason I hang dry them is so the brushes don't mis- shape when they dry:

My favorite brush in the world: Nars blush brush!!! I've had this brush for 4 years and it has NEVER shed on me. It's pricey at $55, but totally worth the doe! I can use alcohol on this brush, even though it's goat hair, and it still looks like the first day I got it! This brush is made awesome, and I would definitely suggest snagging one. I now have 2 of these brushes, another to use on cleints because I love it that much! This is the brush below:
Below is the MAC blending brush that I've wanted for awhile, I've seen so many artists with this brush and I love the way it blends in the outer corner of the eye. I will be getting this brush before summer ends, hopefully ;)

My brushes are still drying but tomorrow morning they will be ready to use, and I can't wait to get them dirty again, is that bad? lol

xox Laura Beth