How do you keep your brushes clean?

To be honest, I was not the type of person that use brushes to apply makeup. I liked to apply with my fingers, hands although,  I knew a lot of germs are on people's hands than a toilet (ewu I know..) I used to believe that fingers are the best tools for makeup until I got serious break outs. It just started to happen when I moved in to CA. Maybe I had so much stress and pressure. I was so depressed being in the state where I don't have any friends or people that I can talk to. Or just simply I kept my hands not clean enough and got break outs ! So that's when I started to using makeup brushes. It proves that I'm not a brush expert and I'm on my way to figure out 'how to keep my brushes clean' or 'what's the best way to clean the brushes.'

I had a little experiment with E.L.F's daily brush cleanser, liquid foam hand soap, and a bar soap. Since I'm away from home, I have such a limited brush selection and please understand the dirtiness of my brushes ( haven't clean them in awhile.. )

For the first, I tried E.L.F's daily brush cleanser. I had such a hope on this one since I really like their brushes. I thought they probably made 'awesome brush cleanser' along with their real awesome brushes! But, i guess I was wrong on this one. It didn't do anything on 'cleaning' the brush at all. It smelled quite funny and seemed like contain strong alcohol as well.  The last picture above is after I sprayed several time and washed a bit with water. Do you see any change ? I obviously don't.. It looks dirty wet. 

Second try was with the liquid foam hand soap. I believe many of you might use liquid soap to clean your brushes? Because that's what I normally used to clean my brushes.  As you can see above, It cleaned my brush more than the first one but still doesn't look clean as I wanted it to be.  I use this brush to apply my tinted moisturizer so I know it's hard to clean than other brushes. However, I still need something to clean my foundation brush so I can keep my face clean and germ free! I would say I was little disappointed. 

For the final, this is what it looks like when i cleaned my brushes with the bar soap. Blush brush still has some makeup residue but oh my, much much better than the other two! The rest of my brushes got cleaned so good and look like NEW.  All i did was just rub the brush on the bar soap like i was trying to get some eyeshadow on the brush and washed it with water. Ta-Dah!

I know it's really important to keep my brushes clean just like my hands. But don't know and not sure if i'm doing it right with cleaning it with a bar soap? What do you use to clean your makeup brushes? Any good methods? Please do share! :)

 twitter | email | facebook | instagram 

  Don't have a blog? follow via bloglovin'!

Beauty 101 | How to Apply Concealer Like a Pro

*original source from here

 Picture this: You arrive at a restaurant to meet your best friend for brunch and as you lean in for a hug, you spot a crusted, muddy-looking blotch of concealer on her cheek. As she starts filling you in on her latest news all you're thinking is: Her concealer is doing nothing but making that zit look worse -- how do I tell her?

That's the thing about concealer. We do everything we can to use it to camouflage our flaws yet all too often, we end up accentuating them. And that's why, despite the fact that breaking down the details of how to apply concealer correctly sounds like the most boring makeup topic ever, it’s an important skill to hone.

And while applying concealer properly may not be rocket science, it's not necessarily an intuitive process either. In fact, celebrity makeup artist Mario Dedivanovic (the guy responsible for making Kim Kardashian's complexion look flawless, even when it's not), says the most common mistake he sees women make with concealer is the most basic: We don't match it to our skin tone.

"When the concealer is too dark, setting it with powder will only make it darker, which makes the spot you're trying to cover look like a muddy patch of skin," Dedivanovic says.

But he also maintains that's not where the big fail ends. When we set the concealer with powder, we're using the wrong shade of powder. "You have to use a powder that's a shade lighter than your skin tone, because when dry powder touches wet concealer, it'll get darker." Who knew? Another life-changing tip from Dedivanovic: Apply your loose powder with a velour puff brush; using a natural bristle brush can leave streaks on your skin.