Lets Talk Sanitation

I made a random trip to a makeup store yesterday to go play with a few things. Now, I've never paid much attention to the girls working the makeup counters, but given it took me an hour to get 3 samples, I had time to stare. I was truly appalled and all around concerned for these patrons health & well being. I felt like I was literally watching Staph, E-coli, & Pink eye being freely passed around.

As a professional makeup artist, my main priority other than beautifying, is my clients health. Ensuring my makeup & brushes are washed & sanitized. Why do us professionals do this? Sharing, passing, double dipping & not cleaning our brushes & makeup spreads germs, bacteria and serious illness. Who would have thought that makeup/brushes harbor e-coli, staph infection, pink eye, & pseudomonas aeruginosa. Sounds delicious eh?

How do we professionals keep our makeup & brushes safe for our clients? Firstly,  we wash our brushes after every single use. Many also spray them with 70% alcohol after washing. For mascara, we use disposables & never dip the used wand back into the tube. We use a spatula & steel mixing palette to scrape out creams & gels. This ensures no dirty brush or sponge is double dipped into clean product. Liquid foundations are also put onto the steel mixing palette. Lipsticks, if left in tube form, should have a piece put onto a steel palette, if depotted, should be put onto a steel palette. This ensures no cross contamination. We also use disposable for lips as well. For eye liner pencils & lip pencils we sharpen immediately after use and spray with beauty so clean or alcohol. One last thing, if you ever see your makeup artist or counter artist blow or lick on a brush, WALK away!

If we are working on set & have multiple models, we use the same procedures as above, but if the artist does not have a large stock of brushes they will wash on set. Cozzette, Cinema Secrets, Parian Spirit, even alcohol is use to clean brushes & sanitize them. For our makeup, 70% alcohol or Beauty So Clean is sprayed directly onto eye shadows, blushes, bronzers, highlighters, creams, liners and lipsticks. This will kill any and all bacteria rendering it safe for the next person.

You as a client, model, and consumer have every right to say NO if you see a makeup artist or counter artist practicing unsanitary methods. Your health should never be put in jeopardy. If you need to, ask your artist when the last time they washed their brushes or sanitized their makeup. Especially at a counter. Could you imagine having your wedding makeup done & having a not so sanitary artist doing it, and you end up with pink eye or worse on your honeymoon?

One last thing before I finish, makeup testers at cosmetic stores. Those harbor more germs & bacteria than anything. There have been traces of fecal matter found on those! Yep, I said it, poop! And you wanna slap that on your face to see if you like the color. Never do that! If you want to swatch anything, do it on your arm or the top of your hand, & with lipsticks you get the best color on the top of your finger since it is closest to your lip color. Or you can carry around a travel sized bottle of 70% alcohol or beauty so clean (they have wipes too) and clean it off before you swatch. And please make sure you wash your hands right afterwards, even if you just use some Germx or Purell hand sanitizer.

Links to products mentioned:
Parian Spirit 
Cinema Secrets Brush Cleaner 
Cozzette Brush Cleaner 
Beauty So Clean 

If you have any questions, something to add or comments, feel free to leave them below.
Thanks!