ELF Studio Daily Brush Cleaner

Although I wash my brushes once a week I like to give them a quick clean after every single use. I just squirt some brush cleaner onto some tissue, swirl the brush around in it and voila, clean and sanitised brushes that are almost instantly ready to be used again. I’ve gone through 3 bottles of MAC brush cleaner but it’s £8.50 for 233ml which adds up. The ELF offering is £3.50 for 250ml so if it worked then I’d stock up. But it didn't, so I won't.

The black square spray bottle certainly looks nice and sleek and I love that I don’t have to decant it into a spray bottle like I do with the MAC cleanser. The first thing I noticed is the over powering smell of alcohol. This is unsurprising as it appears second on the very short ingredients list. The high alcohol content means that my brushes dry extremely quickly after using this which is always handy. 

But does it work?

No. I have no doubt that the high alcohol content is killing any nasties but it doesn’t do anything to actually remove product from my brushes. Any white bristled brushes end up horribly stained and stinking of vodka. The MAC brush cleaner has a kind of foamy quality, if you shake it you get bubbles in the bottle whereas the ELF one doesn’t foam at all. Given that I definitely won’t use this up in its usual state and you know how I hate to see products I paid for being wasted I decided to get creative. I decanted some into a small spray bottle, added a squeeze of baby shampoo, a little more water and a splash of Lancome Cleansing Water, gave it a shake and voila. A perfectly functioning brush cleanser. 

This got me thinking (a rare event). Wouldn’t I achieve the same thing with surgical spirit (rubbing alcohol if you’re in the US), baby shampoo and water? I could get a big bottle of surgical spirit for a couple of pounds at a pharmacy, baby shampoo for pennies and have the makings of a years’ worth of daily brush cleaner right there. I’ll let you know how I get on!

  X

*Bought by me*