You know how we can get a little crazy shopping makeup? I don't think I'm a hoarder, but I definitely have a lot of makeup. The thing is, once some of my makeup crossed a year or so, I started feeling little icky about using it! I do keep my makeup in the best condition and I'm sure anyone would, after all, that stuff goes on your face. But I still felt like it's gotten pretty old to continue using and throwing out just a year old makeup was out of the question. Then one day, one of my favourite youtubers aka Sineadycady, did a video about sanitizing makeup and voila! It was exactly what looking for. I immediately started collecting all the stuff I would need (that's why I ordered those spray bottles from eBay) and sanitized my entire makeup collection. I also looked through some blogposts for further help and now I finally have a guide that I follow every time I sanitize my makeup. Actually, this post was supposed to go up in August but better late than never. So here I am, sharing all that I've learnt with you!
1. Rubbing alcohol: Just ask any medical store. The pharmacist I went to said that its used to sanitize a body part before injection.
2. One spray bottle (I bought mine HERE)
Why rubbing alcohol? It is used for disinfection or to soothe, cool, or warm the skin. It is a type of denatured alcohol and is unfit for human consumption. Rubbing alcohol is most often used to disinfect medical instruments and human skin, especially in the case of minor injury or to prepare the skin for an injection. If left on the skin for two minutes, 70% ethyl alcohol will reduce the bacterial count by 5%. People should be careful when applying rubbing alcohol to the skin, as it can be toxic if used over large parts of the body. It can be poisonous if inhaled, so it should be used only in well ventilated areas. It evaporates quickly.
First, transfer half of the rubbing alcohol into the spray bottle, you can add more later, if needed. Lay out all your makeup on an old cloth or a towel. I chose to categorize mine this way-
This is pretty much 70% of my makeup - single eye shadows, palettes, single blushes, powder compacts. I even added my cream concealer and cream shadows.
Step 3: Once you've cleaned the case, take your spray bottle and spray it directly onto the pan. Depending on the size of your palette this could take many sprays. For me, the single stuff took 2 sprays and eyeshadow palettes took 3.
Step 4: Leave it open to dry. I had the fan on so all the powders dried up fast, cream ones took little longer, but nothing more than a couple of minutes. Rubbing alcohol evaporates quickly.
Step 5: Your product is now sanitized!
For makeup that is in a bullet/crayon:
All your lipsticks, lip crayons, stick concealers, stick foundations, blush sticks, automatic liners
Again, clean the case as mentioned in steps 1 & 2 above. In case of liners, clean the cap using q-tips.
For makeup that is in a sharpenable pencil form:
All pencil eyeliners, lip liners, lipsticks, concealers
Step 2: Spray some of the rubbing alcohol onto a cotton pad and clean the body of the products. Use q-tips to clean the caps.
All your lip glosses, eye primers, liquid concealers, lip -cheek stains. I couldn't find any method to do this online so I devised a technique.
Step 1: Start by deep cleaning and drying all your brushes.
Its best to group your brushes for this. All eye can ones go together, then face ones individually.
Not included
- Mascara coz you need to get rid of it 4-6 months after first use
- Foundation. I can only think of cleaning the package and cap thoroughly.
How often should you sanitize?
Definitely every month, atleast for the makeup you use frequently. I sanitize the makeup I use the most every week, but I'm a bit of a germophobe, so its normal for me. I really enjoy the whole process.
Lesser used makeup: sanitized after couple of weeks of use.
Unused for long time(more than a month): sanitized before using
None of the makeup was spoilt or destroyed after I used the rubbing alcohol liberally on all of them. Some of my eye shadows showed improvement in pigmentation. That only means there was a layer of grime over them!
Phew! This is finally over. Beauty bloggers will definitely know all of this, but for the rest, hope you found it helpful :)