BRUSH CLEANERS

Not too long ago I blogged about facial cleansing cloths.  Now I wish to discuss makeup brush cleaners.  There are a few on the market, but how do you know which one will clean your brushes the best.  The brush cleaners I chose to speak about are MAC Brush Cleanser and Cinema Secrets Professional Brush Cleaners.  To determine which product is better I cleaned two eye makeup brushes, I poured 1/2 oz. of each cleanser to clean each brush.  I then compared the cost of the product to the amount it costs to use.

Cinema Secrets (left) and MAC (right)

The first cleanser is the ever popular MAC Brush Cleaner.  The bottle states, "Apply to a damp brush and work through.  Rinse well.  Reshape and lay flat to dry."  I followed the instructions to clean my makeup brush.  The brush had been used three times since last Friday.  It took me two tries to clean the makeup brush.  The MAC Brush Cleaner comes in a 7.9oz bottle and costs $15.00.  I used a total of one ounce which gave me a cost of $1.90 of product to clean the brush.

The second makeup brush cleaner I used was Cinema Secrets Professional Brush Cleaner.  Mainly used by professional makeup artists, Cinema Secrets is widely sold on the Internet as opposed to your local mall.  The instructions for cleaning your brushes read as follow, "1) Pour 1/2 inch of brush cleaner into the Cinema Secrets tin can; 2) Dip small brushes so the hairs are fully submerged.  On larger brushes, only dip the tip of the brush.  Remove, wipe on paper towel or clean cloth.  Repeat the process once or twice more (until brush is completely clean); 3) Allow up to 15 minutes drying time for small brushes; allow up to 30 minutes for large blusher or powder brushes before reusing."  Don't worry.  You DO NOT have to purchase Cinema Secret's tin can in order to be able to use this cleanser.  I know I didn't.  I got a tin can from Michael's and it has been fine for me.  The bottle I used was a 32 oz. bottle.  The brush I cleaned had been used about 4-5 times since last Friday.  To clean my brush, I used 1/2oz. of the cleaner.  It took me one try to get the brush clean.  The total cost of product to clean the brush was $0.56.  For many of you, you will not be needing such a large bottle.  So I went ahead and got the figures for using an 8 oz. bottle which costs $24.00.  I poured the same amount of cleaner for each use, 1/2 oz., and the total cost of product to clean the brush from an 8 oz. bottle was $1.50.

The verdict is: Cinema Secrets Professional Brush Cleaner beats MAC's Brush Cleaner in cost and in quality.  Further, it beat MAC in both sizes.  So save your money and get your brushes really cleaned rather than buying a designer labeled brush cleaner.

You can purchase MAC Brush Cleaner at www.maccosmetics.com or use the find a store link to find the location of your nearest MAC store.

You can purchase Cinema Secrets Professional Brush Cleaner at www.cinemasecrets.com and www.camerareadycosmetics.com