A Brush Washing Alternative to the $39 Sigma Glove

Tuesday, April 16, 2013

A few months ago, Sigma came out with a brush washing glove (here) that was reviewed by a lot of YouTubers and bloggers. After watching and reading countless reviews, I became pretty convinced that $39 was a pretty steep price to pay for a textured silicone glove. Don't get me wrong, I will happily part with my money for nice brushes but not for a brush cleaner that has an uncanny resemblance to a dog washing mitt.

I rummaged around my bathroom, looking under the sink for the silicone body mitt that I had purchased last year. It is supposed to help with cellulite, I had purchased it mainly because I have frightfully dry ankles and thought that maybe it would exfoliate them. It didn't, so it ended up under the sink aka the Skin & Hair Care Graveyard. The brand is Cailyn, I had purchased at Marshalls for around $5, if I remember correctly. One side has large nubs while the other side has longer, soft silicone "teeth". I mainly used the fine side because the shape and direction of the larger nubs created a lot of drag on bristles.

I didn't even get my hands wet. I just plopped that sucker in the sink and let a thin stream of lukewarm water run down the length of it. I wet each brush, applied a drop of cleaner and created a lather by gently stroking it across the teeth in one direction, flipping the brush over to do the other side followed by a final rinse. I had watched a lot of YouTubers go at it pretty hard scrubbing their brushes in a hard circular motion which seems to me a fine way to send your brush into early retirement.

The soft silicone did an excellent job really getting concealer and foundation out of my synthetic brushes. However I found that I preferred to lather my natural bristle brushes by hand, I want to be as gentle as possible on those hairs. Though the Sigma glove boasts six textures, I honestly felt like just the one texture of long silicone teeth worked splendidly for cleaning brushes of all types.

Another option to clean your brushes is a face cleansing scrublet. You know, the kind that came on the L'Oreal 360 cleaners and can be found very cheaply on eBay or Asian beauty sites. It's basically a mini glove. Another YouTuber, SecretLifeofABioNerd created this tutorial for a brilliant DIY brush cleaning board that just requires a hot glue gun and a plastic clipboard. Seriously though, if I hadn't found my old body mitt, I would have gone for the dog washing glove since you can pick one up for under $10 at any pet supply. Wouldn't you rather spend your moolah on say, another pretty blush instead?

What do you currently use to wash your brushes? Have you tried the Sigma glove? Did you find it to be worth the price tag?

Products featured were purchased by me, for my own use. For additional information, please refer to my Disclosure Policy.