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Adventures in the Life of a Make-up Addict: the Brush Cleanser Episode

Lena

Lena/ 11

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As a make-up addict,  I love everything about make-up and make-up tools: buying them, playing with them, talking about them.  There is one thing I kinda hate though: cleaning brushes!

You can use good old water and soap to clean your brush. But it takes ages to do, especially if you have tens of brushes, and somehow they manage to all get used during the course of a week. And don’t even get me started on the travel brushes!

When I do get down and dirty with brush cleaning, it takes me up to an hour to do everything, and then I”d still have to wait til they dry before using them. Washing your brush after every application is perhaps ideal, but who does that, really?! On lazy months, I just take out my jar of brushes to bask in the morning sun once in a while, hoping the UV rays are enough to kill the bacterias.

For this reason alone, brush cleansers are a life saver. You dip a brush in it and dry it, or swipe a brush with it and, voila, clean brush. But seems that only the high end brands make them, so they are expensive. A MAC brush cleanser, for example, is US$ 12 for 233 ml. Shu Uemura cleansers are even more expensive. At these prices, I just stick to ol’ water and soap, swirling my brushes in the mixture while dreaming of a day when brush cleansers are cheap and plentiful.

So you can understand how I literally froze when I spied a row of bottles market ‘Brush Cleaner’* at the Puspita Martha stand during the Beautifying Indonesia Conference. There it was, jars of 240ml of liquid goodness just waiting to be snatched for Rp35,000 a bottle.  So yeah, I did some snatching  and twitted the find. A couple of fellow addicts ambushed me right after, but they weren’t as gullible as I, and demanded proof. So we headed to the restroom right there and then to give it a try.

In the restroom, a duo-fiber brush was procured, a sheet of plastic laid down on the counter, and right away we started our experiment. The cleanser was splashed onto the brush, and the brush swiped vigorously over the plastic sheet. There was a strong smell of rubbing alcohol, and the liquid begins to turn a dirty brown, while the brush tips begins to turn a whiter color. A minute later, we ran the faucet over the brush hairs, and voila, a clean brush! The two are convinced and off they go to get themselves some of this magic juice.

I’ve played around at home with the cleanser for a couple days now–my brushes have never been this clean. The cleanser contains a heavy dose of alcohol, so I tried diluting a bit of water with them. With about equal parts water and cleanser, the cleaning action still works, and you only have to swirl the brushes a bit before the grime dissolve. After that, run clean water over the brush hairs or dip the brush in clean water, lay it down to dry, and you’re done. There is some scent similar to that in baby products, but I don’t find it obtrusive.

My favorite way to clean now is, however, to put some cleanser in a spritzing bottle, and spritz it onto the brush hairs to clean. Leave it for about half a minute, then wipe it on a dry, clean piece of paper towel or wet tissue, and you get a clean brush! No need to splash around with water or even go to the bathroom! The brush is only damp, rather than wet, so off you go for a shower and by the time you’re done, your brush is dry and ready for use!

Ok, now the bad news. I’ve never seen this baby sold anywhere before, and I’m one who goes in to every Puri Ayu store whenever I see one  (they are now called Martha Tilaar Concept Store). That’s because Puspita Martha products are only being sold at their offices on Wahid Hasyim, Jakarta. That is a shame, but the good news is, it’s probably worth your while to visit there, because the Wahid Hasyim building seems to be a dreamland for make-up junkies, hosting all of Martha Tilaar brands, a spa and salon, even a crafts gallery.

So, back to brush cleansers. Do you use one? Which brand, and how much does it cost?

*This is grammatically incorrect however; it should be cleanser, as in facial cleanser. Cleaner would be the one who does the act, i.e. the dry cleaners.


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