The Importance of Keeping Your Makeup Tools Clean
Being a makeup artist means ensuring your clients are completely satisfied. Let’s face it, if it weren’t for them, you’d have no business at all. So, for you to keep up an excellent reputation (and also to protect your clients), you need to make sure your makeup artist hygiene kit is well-stocked and immaculate.
This, of course, makes your job a little bit more complicated, especially if you move around between appointments. However, using disposables makes this process much easier. This is especially important during these uncertain times of Covid-19 where we can’t be too careful.
Let’s take a look at some makeup artist hygiene kit must-haves.
Makeup Artist Hygiene Kit essentials
To start, we’ll give you a quick list of everything you could possibly need in your makeup artist hygiene kit:
- Tissues and paper towels
- Disposable makeup tools (applicators, brushes, wands for mascara, cotton pads, q-tips)
- Spatula and metal plate (to use when applying cream products so that you don’t “double-dip”)
- Powder products with alcohol spray and paper towels to take off the top layer
- Brush cleaner (for on-set cleans)
- 70% alcohol for cleaning
- Trash bags
- Zip-lock bags for dirty brushes if there is no time for on-set cleaning
Now let’s look at some Kit items in more detail
Cotton Swabs as important Makeup Artist Hygiene Kit items
Cotton swabs have been in existence for around one hundred years – and for good reason. These are essential items for a makeup artist hygiene kit. You can use them to tidy up the eyes, create smoky eyes and create clean lipstick lines. For tasks like these, cotton swabs are excellent because they’re disposable and, therefore, hygienic.
Even the best makeup artists might forget to sanitize a brush. But this is really dangerous as you’re essentially exposing clients to other people’s bacteria! When you have disposable items, it’s much easier to remember your good hygiene practices. What’s more, you don’t have to spend time cleaning brushes at the end of a session.
Makeup Remover Pads
Lots of clients will turn up to an appointment already wearing makeup. Having some makeup remover pads to hand means you’ve got something to use right there and then and you’re not risking anyone’s safety by using something like a flannel! Whether you choose smaller makeup remover pads or larger cosmetic wipes is up to you. You should, though, have something available that’s hypoallergenic for clients who have sensitive skin.
Disposable Makeup Spatulas
These are popular items for a makeup artist hygiene kit. When you’ve got products that are creams or liquids, you need a way of getting the product out of the palette or tub. With a disposable makeup spatula, you’ve got an easy solution. These allow a makeup artist to take some product from the palette in a way that is both easy and hygienic – no fingers or dirty brushes in sight! After one or two uses, they can be discarded so you also save on washing brushes and sponges.
Always use a new spatula with a new product so you have one for eyeshadow, for example, and another for foundation or even lip color. Simply scoop, use the product, then throw it in the trash can.
Powder Puffs- Other important Makeup Artist Hygiene Kit items
Did you know you can actually get disposable powder puffs? These little tools are so useful for makeup artists and make an excellent addition to a makeup artist hygiene kit. With a powder puff, you can set wet makeup with powder so that it stays in place. You can also use them to put on pressed powder. Another use is to put against your client’s skin if you need to rest your hand to steady it – the powder puff is a shield for hygiene purposes here.
Whatever you’re using a disposable powder puff for, you can’t reuse it. Some makeup artists simply throw these away, but you can also give them to your client so that they can reuse them themselves. After all, they may as well use it again if it’s just going to go in the trash.
Antibacterial Wipes
Cleaning your kit has always been important, but with the Covid-19 pandemic, it’s become even more so. When you’re concentrating on ensuring your makeup kit is disposable and hygienic, you can often forget one of the dirtiest places of all – your bag! It’s a massive faux pas not to clean your makeup bag inside and out because what’s the point in having all of these hygienic tools and accessories if you’re going to carry them around in a bag that’s never cleaned?!
That’s where antibacterial wipes come in! You should aim to have a bag that is always clean but you should aim for a deep clean at least once per week. This is where you’d remove everything from your makeup case or bag and clean the inside thoroughly with an antibacterial wipe or two.
Final Thoughts
This is obviously a task that will take time out of your week, but it is essential. If you’re really careful with your makeup products and only use disposable tools, you’ll find things stay cleaner a lot longer! You can go through Vizio Makeup Academy to know more about their advanced and uniquely designed makeup kits.
Whether you’re an experienced makeup artist or just starting to build your first makeup artist hygiene kit, we hope you’ve now gained some ideas on what to include to make sure your makeup kit is sanitary. If you’re worried about having so many disposables and them being bad for the environment, there are renewable alternatives like wooden q-tips that aren’t made of plastic and biodegradable makeup wipes and antibacterial wipes. If you are going for an all-out eco-warrior style, you could invest in some washable makeup wipes or cloth pads to use. As long as you wash them at a high temperature between clients, only use them on one client, and store them hygienically, there’s no reason why this won’t work.
