Like most gals, I roll out of bed in the morning, brush my teeth, fluff my hair and pull out my beloved makeup stash to cover up my rosy skintone, fake a bronzed glow, and paint my eyes and lips. I dabbed my trusty shadow brush into a shimmery nude color, and applied....a dark brown. It was then I tried to remember the last time I washed my brushes, and I came up empty. It's clearly been a long while. Too long.

I started wondering just how gross those fluffy things were, what microscopic creepy crawlies I was brushing over my eyes and face. So I googled that shizz. I read this and this, but if you are more of a 'visual blog reader,' I'll summarize the need-to-knows for you.

1. You risk cross-contamination. Makeup brushes can become full of bacteria, dust, and dirt, which are good breeding grounds for more bacteria...which you then swirl and dip into your cosmetics, making them little germy cess pools. Oh, and not to mention that those nasty microbes can cause skin problems like acne. Yuck.

2. Cleaning your brushes keeps them in tip-top shape. All the gunk left on the bristles can cause breakage and make it more difficult to blend and shade.

3. Use a gentle cleanser. There are tons of makeup brush cleaners out there, but I hit up the travel section at Target to get some Johnson & Johnson baby shampoo. Worked like a charm, and it's cheap. Just work the shampoo in by swirling and going with the direction of the bristles. If you go the opposite direction, you could pull some bristles out and make it all frayed.

4. Make sure you dry them flat. After you've rinsed the bristles, sqeeze them gently and lay them flat on a washcloth to dry.

I have been in skincare overdrive recently, trying serums, exfoliators and brighteners to even my skintone and get rid of a weird bumpy texture around my chin.I'm thinking that my icky brushes might have something to do with that, so I cleaned those babies and now they are fresh to death. Here's hoping for smooth, clean skin!

PS Some great brushes to add to your arsenal are here, here, here and here.

{Photos by me}