However, I was desperate. It takes quite a bit of time to clean and dry a few makeup brushes. If you don't have the gadget, then you'll have to find a place where you can hang those brushes upside down. If you don't hang up upside down, the water can get to the glue that holds the bristles together and weakens it.
There are a few DIY videos out there on YouTube replicating the StylPro cleaner. One video shows that you can use a cordless drill. Another video teaches you to attach your brush with tape to a frothing gadget that you can buy from Ikea. I love my makeup brushes; there was no way I was going to subject them to that kind of treatment.
After two years, I broke down and purchased an off-brand StylPro cleaner. I browsed eBay for a few months and found DRĒM. The cost of the tool was $12.00, but since I kept this thing in my shopping cart for who knows how long, eBay gave me a $5 voucher to use. After checkout, the gadget cost $7. I had free shipping!
Excitement is the word I'll use to describe that feeling when the package arrived on my doorstep. I wanted to use it right away, which I did. Since I was busy with other things, like testing appetizer recipes to serve at Christmas dinner, I didn't give it the time it deserved. Now, I can finally give it a proper test and see if the off-brand works just as well.
The DRĒM tool comes with the motorized attachment, brush adapters, cleaner bowl, and holder.
As you can see, I have a plethora of brushes to choose from whenever I do my make-up. I have inexpensive ones that I use with the makeup I get from Target and expensive ones that go with my favorite brand, Bare Escentuals.
Here's one brush that I've been using quite a bit and it's the foundation brush. As you can see, the brush is full of caked foundation. To clean this brush, I attached it to one of the adapters that came with the cleaner. When you're ready to clean, you dunk the brush into the makeup cleaner. I used the Bare Escentuals brush shampoo and some water. It swirls around the cup. I felt like it didn't clean it as well as I hoped. After another minute in the solution and another minute to spin out of the solution, the brush looked clean and dry.
While others were cleaned and dried, there are others that are left still quite dirty. I ended cleaning these brush on the mat: concealer, contour, and eyeliner. I also dried them by hanging them upside down. The only thing I didn't like about this product is the cleaning bowl. It doesn't give you enough surface area to spin-dry the brush. My suggestion is to pick up one of those round glass bowls at the Dollar Tree and use that as your cleaning bowl.
Overall, I was pretty pleased with how it turned out. You really can't tell the difference between the expensive StylPro brand and the off-brand. It didn't take me that long to clean my brushes. At the most, I spent 15 minutes cleaning and drying them versus hours to clean and then days to dry.
Toodles!
