On Trial: The Real Techniques Deep Cleansing Brush Cleanser

Cleaning brushes is the bane of most make-up lovers' lives but it's something that just has to be done, no questions asked, especially if it's your profession. Personally, I really like cleaning my brushes - it takes a while of course but it's always worth it in the end and I love nothing more than seeing them all lined up in a neat little army, looking fresh and ready for whomever is next to have their face painted. It pains me to hear about experiences people have had where a make-up artist has arrived with dirty brushes, it's just not cricket.

When I was asked to test out the Real Techniques Deep Cleansing Gel I was quite excited, because y'know, I'm sad like that.  I decided to try it out on 3 different types of make-up applicator which included a synthetic hair kabuki brush, a natural hair blush brush and then a my Inglot sponge to see how it fared.

On an aesthetic note, I like the packaging design, the bottle is a decent size at 150ml, and the smell is pleasant too, like a gentle shampoo or baby shampoo. Unlike a shampoo though, when you squeeze this, only a small amount comes out (about a 20 cent coin size) so there's less waste.

In terms of performance, the Cleansing Gel did the trick and cleaned everything as you can see from the pictures. Given that most of the RT brushes are synthetic hair, I wasn't surprised that over all, it worked best on the kabuki brush, lathering up quickly and rinsing easily. The sponge also washed and rinsed in a flash. The natural hair brush had been used to apply a red, cream blusher so was always going to be more of a challenge - I had hoped that I'd be able to get the all the staining out but it didn't quite manage that - in fairness, it was clean though.

Over all, the plus points for this are definitely that it works brilliantly on synthetic brushes and that there's less waste thanks to the way the bottle has been designed. Now that I have it, I'll certainly continue to use it on my brushes until it runs out, but will I be repurchasing... I'm not 100% sure at the moment, it will depend on how long it lasts. Judging by how little I had to use to clean these I'd say it'll do for quite a while though.

I got it from Cloud 10 beauty where it's priced at €9.50 but if you know of any other stockists please share down in the comments!

Have you tried this yet? How do you clean your brushes?