I was really excited when I saw my product list for the September BNT Beauty Box because it includes two brush cleanser products. I was just about to clean my dirty makeup brushes and since I will be receiving two brush cleansers to try out, I decided to wait one more week so that my Beauty Box will arrive and I will be able to fully test out these products.
The products for today's review are the KICHO Argan Brush Cleanser Wipes and the Argan Brush Cleanser.
So the first product is the Argan Brush Cleanser Wipes. I haven't seen a product like this on the market and in the box, it states that patent is pending for this product. This is very similar to a makeup remover wipe although it is twice or maybe even 3 times the size of it.
It is free from any chemicals (paraben-free and benzophenone-free) and is made from vegetable extracts such as green tea, calendula, lemon, tangerine and others to disinfect and thoroughly clean brushes. It has argan oil to condition the brushes and keep them soft.
The Argan Brush Cleanser Wipes is designed to conveniently clean makeup brushes and puffs.
One box of the Argan Brush Cleanser Wipes has 5 individually packed sheet. on the back of the packaging is the product information and ingredient list in Korean but thankfully there is an English translation on how to use the product.
Instructions:
- Open packet and place the sheet on top of it
- Take your dirty brush and swirl it around the sheet to remove makeup
- Rinse the brush under warm water
- Re-shape the brush, lay flat and let it dry
Below is a small demo of the efficacy of the product. Pardon the lighting because the kitchen was dark and the lights are yellow so the colors would look very warm and yellow-tinged in the photos.
As you can see the sheet is pretty big although one sheet may not be enough to clean more than 25 makeup brushes especially if they are mostly face brushes since they are bigger and would require more space. Although I found out through testing this cleanser wipe that you can definitely use the other side of the sheet. Just add a little bit of water to the sheet and it will clean your brushes all the same. The sheet, if I'm not mistaken, seems to be a regular cotton sheet soaked in the concentrated liquid brush cleanser, thus allowing it to cleanse the brush.
So here's a dirty blending brush. I purposely used this as an example since it is white-haired, you will be able to fully see how well this brush cleanser wipe works. Below, is a photo of the brush after being swirled on the cleanser wipe and rinsed off with warm water.
I was amazed at how clean this brush became! Below are two more of the same brush. You can tell these are my favorite blending brushes (Sigma E25).
And the final result.
This brush is the one I use with concealer to carve out my brows whenever I make a mess out of my brows. It is a synthetic brush and I find that when used with liquid to creamy products, it sucks up the product all the way to the middle of the brush which can be quite hard to clean.
And here's another clean and happy brush.
Dense face brushes are the hardest to clean especially if you use them with liquid and cream products. They usually absorb the product to the middle of the brush and although your brush looks clean after washing them, the middle part of the brush is still filled with gunk. Back in 2012, I made a blog post on how I deep clean my dense makeup brushes and to this day, that is still howI clean them because it is the single most effective way I found that cleanses these dense brushes right down at the middle.
I am very curious to find out if a brush cleansing wipe would be able to clean a dense face brush that has been used with liquid foundation.
Surprisingly enough, this face brush was as clean as it should be. Although it took me quite a while when it came to swirling the brush and rubbing it all over the sheet, it wasn't as tiring or as long as pumping soap onto my hand and massaging the bristles. I checked the middle part of the brush if the dirt was removed, and alas it did! The photo above may look yellow, but believe me, it is only the lighting and this brush was extremely clean and no residue remained after rinsing it with warm water.
Overall, I am very impressed with the brush cleansing wipes. This is such a good product to bring when you're traveling since you don't have to worry about TSA and liquid rules. If you're a makeup artist and are working on several clients in the span of a couple of days this will very much come in handy since you can quickly clean your makeup brushes. I find that the eye brushes doesn't take too long to dry as well. Just lightly rinse them in warm water, wipe the bristles with a paper towel while reshaping them and let them air dry for a good 15-20 minutes and they will be ready for use again. For face brushes, you might want to wait a good hour or two before they completely dry.
Two thumbs up for the KICHO Argan Brush Cleanser Wipes. Definitely something that hastens brush cleaning since you don't have to go back and forth dispensing soap into your hands and massaging the brush hairs, rinsing and doing it all over again if the brush isn't thoroughly clean. My only concern is that there were only 5 sheets in the box. Since this was sent to me, I'm not sure if they retail the cleanser wipes in a bigger count than 5 per box. Other than that, I'm completely sold on this one.
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Now let's head on to the liquid counterpart of the wipes, the traditional, Argan Brush Cleanser.
The Argan Brush Cleanser is made of the same ingredients as the Cleanser Wipes - free from any chemicals (paraben-free and benzophenone-free), made from vegetable extracts such as green tea, calendula, lemon, tangerine and argan oil.
There is 260 ml of product in a bottle and one thing I noticed about the brush cleanser is that there is no English instructions unlike the brush cleanser wipes. Since it is in a liquid form, I believe this would be similar to a liquid soap in use and formula.
These are all my dirty brushes ready for washing
The bottle comes with a rubber stopper so you don't dispense too much of the product. At first I tried dispensing some of the liquid on the palm of my hand but it has a very watery formula and it easily runs down the hand. I realized that it would be much better to put some of the liquid in a cup and soak and swirl my brushes in there.
Another one of my dense face brushes that I use to apply liquid foundation.
So what I did was pour the cleanser into a cup, making sure that the liquid was below my brush ferrule so that it wouldn't loosen the glue for the brush hairs. I swirled it around the cup and then removed the excess cleanser by pressing it to the side of the cup and then rinsing the brush in warm water. or the face brush, I actually had to go in twice since after the first rinse I can still see some dirt and foundation residue.
In my opinion the Brush Cleanser Wipes actually did a better job of cleaning dense face brushes than the the Brush Cleanser itself. I think this is due to the fact that the dirt sticks to the cotton wipe while with the cleanser, the cup that I used is smooth and has no ridges to help the dirt come off or adhere to. The brush cleanser also doesn't bubble up or foam like liquid soaps do. Cleaning the eye brushes with the Argan Brush Cleanser was fast and easy and it removed makeup completely. I also like that there was a subtle 'clean' scent to the brush cleanser.
It didn't take too long for the brushes to dry as well. It took about 2 hours for the big face brushes to completely dry and the smaller eye brushes took about 30 minutes to dry. The brush hairs are soft and smooth like newly bought brushes so that's a huge plus.
All brushes now clean!
Both the KICHO Argan Brush Cleanser Wipes and Cleanser are really good products although I personally prefer the Cleanser Wipes than it's liquid counterpart.
*This product was sent to me for review but as always, my reviews are honest and based on my own opinions and experience.
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