The best way to succeed in the makeup industry is to learn the nitty-gritty details about makeup. Learning the techniques and acquiring the best products aren’t enough. Makeup artists also clean their makeup just as how essential it is to clean their brushes. Why? Well, makeup products also do pickup germs, too and you don’t want to put contaminated products on your face and your client’s face. So, how do makeup artists clean their makeup?
Throw Away Expired Makeup
Firstly, clean up your makeup kits or vanity area. You may need to say goodbye to some of your makeup products. Some of them do not have expiry dates indicated but there are products you need to discard every 3 months like your mascara or eyeliner especially if you’ve used them on different people. Often times, we base it on the smell or change in color or texture. If it smells funky, you got to throw it out.
Sanitizing Essentials
You can either deep clean or spot clean your items. Spot cleaning is essential in between clients. Deep cleaning is needed every after gig so that your products and tools don’t harbor bacteria while they’re stored.
70% Isopropyl alcohol should do for spot cleaning but remember that there are cosmetic sanitizers being sold for the purpose of sanitizing your cosmetics. Don’t worry because these products won’t change the potency or the pigmentation of your products.
Cleaning Pumps and Nozzles
Products like foundations that may be found inside a bottle or tube is impossible to sanitize so we just clean its exterior or any area where the product is being dispensed. We go through a lot of bottles of foundation in a year so we don’t really get to the point that we need to throw them out. But if your foundation smells weird, starts to get patchy and the like, please discard it right away.
Sanitizing Pressed Pigments
Pressed pigments include your eyeshadow, bronzer, contour and blush palettes to name a few. To sanitize them, simply take a facial tissue and wipe off any fall out from the surface and then take your cosmetic sanitizer and spritz it all over the surface. Leave it to dry and you can pack it right after.
Bullet Type Lipsticks
Liquid lipsticks that come with applicators are impossible to sanitize so what we do as makeup artists is to use disposable or reusable lipstick wands to apply lipstick on our clients. This way, we don’t ever use the doe foot applicators included in our lipsticks for other people and we get to preserve the cleanliness of the product inside.
Bullet lipsticks, on the other hand, get exposed to air and dirt more often even if we also use disposable and lipstick applicators for them so you may also spray these with cosmetic sanitizer every after gig. Don’t forget to spray the inside of the cover, too.
Pencil Products
Pencils come in twistables and those that you can sharpen. We simply sharpen down the latter and cut off the tip of the former.
Successful makeup artists pay attention to details like these because you want to avoid trouble caused by bad sanitary practices.
