This gadget makes brush-cleaning a breeze

My love for devices and life-simplifying doohickeys almost rivals my love for beauty products—so when these two worlds collide I can rarely resist. You’ve probably seen those motorized makeup-brush cleaners by now, and last week I finally caved and ordered one from Amazon. In a stroke of luck, it arrived yesterday so I had the afternoon to play, and I have to say this was a $25 well-spent.

Here’s the scoop… It’s similar to a battery-powered immersion blender, but it comes with eight attachments to accommodate brush handles of virtually every side. You fill the bowl with water and a brush cleanser or gentle facial cleanser, dip the brush in and out of the water a few times to saturate it, and then press the button to start the spinning. After only 10 or so seconds, you lift the brush out of the water and allow it to spin dry.

I literally washed all of my brushes in less than 10 minutes and each one was 95% dry afterwards. (This is a game-changer if you can’t give your brushes at least a day to dry before you need to use them.) I still hung them upside down to dry completely overnight (this is key to prevent water from compromising the glue that holds the brush head to the handle) and they were good to go by morning.

The one downside is that I wasn’t able to use this tool with my ARTIS or oval M.A.C brushes because they won’t spin properly since the weight is not evenly distributed. But these only represent three of the 15 brushes I use regularly and the process was SO much faster and neater than the palm-held textured silicone mat I’ve been using—which means I’ll definitely be washing my brushes a lot more!