I think it was 3 years ago when I read somewhere that one should have a bottle of rubbing alcohol at home. I had no idea what it was at the time and thought nothing of it until not long after, blogs were swarming with tutorials on how to create your own pans of eyeshadows with pigments and mineral makeup. I was quite into mineral makeup back then, so I purchased a bottle of rubbing alcohol from Priceline to try my hand at potting my own eyeshadows.
As the bottle was quite big and fiddly, I decanted the rubbing alcohol into a small spray bottle to use. It smells like hospitals though; very Dettol-y and not at all pleasant.
Anyway, to cut the story short, I only did it once, got bored and never potted another eyeshadow again. The rubbing alcohol, on the other hand, had plenty of other uses that I’m still using it on a daily basis to this day.
- Clean the arms and the two plastic/rubber pads that rest on the nose of your glasses.
- Clean your makeup brushes (if you’re in a hurry, this works. Don’t recommend just using rubbing alcohol to clean your makeup brushes though, as it’s extremely drying to the bristles)
- Sanitise your makeup brush handles.
- Depot your eyeshadows (or fix broken eyeshadow).
- Sanitise work surfaces.
- Clean the backs of pierced earrings (I do this often)
- Cleaning sticky residue off surfaces left from price tags.
- Sanitise your mobile phone (again, another one I often do)
- Clean mirrors
- It’s a good degreaser
What I don’t recommend though is clean the metal bits of your eyelash curler with rubbing alcohol. I did it once to my Shu Uemura eyelash curler and the rubbing alcohol peeled the shine off, leaving patches of matte here and there. It didn’t ruin the curler but it sure made it look ugly. It is, however, okay to clean the rubber with the alcohol (spray tissue with the alcohol – do not soak the tissue – and give it a good wipe). I don’t know if this was just one-off though; I had no problem cleaning any other metals.
There you go, something useful to keep in the house. There are many uses to the rubbing alcohol. Just don’t add it to your drinks, yeah? 😉
Hmmm, I actually often use my brush cleaner (from Sephora) to clean all my eyelash curlers, and so far so good. Sephora one has many other ingredients other than alcohol though.
I normally use a cotton bud sprayed with brush cleanser to gently wipe the mascara off my lash curlers.
It used to be that I dipped the cotton bud into my cleansing oil and go round my lash curlers. I don’t really wash off the cleansing oil with warm water, but instead, would just rub it off with tissue paper. The cleansing oil method worked fine too, in terms of taking off the mascara, but I was not sure if just taking off mascara means taking off bacteria. So I switched to using my brush cleanser instead.
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Jyoan: That’s good. I use my MAC brush cleaner to clean my eyelash curler too, and had no problems. I reckon it’s the high concentration of alcohol that stripped the shiny bits off the curler. Either that or the curler’s already pretty old and was falling apart 😛
Oooh I’ve used cleansing oil to clean my eyelash curler too. Gave it a good rub, and then rinse with water in the shower. Seems to work well, but yeah like you said, I’m not sure if it really does kill off bacteria.
I’ve always wondered what that was for!
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Karyn: It’s useful to keep in the house. Can use to disinfect all kinds of stuff 😛
Hahah this was super useful and I actually laughed out loud when I read the last line!
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Kimberley: Hahaha well I wouldn’t recommend it, but who knows about the more adventurous ones, eh? 😛
Very good tip! Since I already have hand sanitizers every in the house, and every where I go with me 😉 might as well buy a bottle of rubbing alcohol. I don’t consider myself as a germ phobic, but I can get a little obsessed with my handitizers lol
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Helz: Haha I know what you mean. I got a little sanitiser-crazy too, especially after a shopping spree on Bath & Body Works with a few friends and I purchased 5 hand gel sanitisers and 2 sanitiser sprays! Be careful when using them though, as they do get very drying (despite what the newer ones says about them being moisturising). Do use hand cream after each use, if possible 🙂
Great tip Tine! It’s always the simple items that are the best 😀
Kaye: They are, aren’t they? Smells like hospitals though *shudder* 😛
i use swab pads to clean the back of my earrings, i also used it to clean the rubber for my lash curler and also my lash comb. works a treat and very easy to lug around.
only problem is that sometimes the alcohol pads might get dried out, even though it’s packed individually. >.< but it still doesn't deter me from using them!
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Plue: I didn’t think of using this to clean the back of my earrings until I got my ears pierced last year. First time I took my earrings out after 3 months of wearing the studs … woaaaahhh. Euuww. Disgusting 😛
I know what you mean by swab pads. I have those too (or at least, Tim nicks them from the hospital every time he gets. Shhh!), and use them on the go 🙂
i always keep a bottle of this too! it is indeed very useful! 🙂
Issa: Good stuff, isn’t it? As long as you get past the Dettol-ish hospital smell, that is 😛
I was a bit overzealous with my alcohol cleaning, so my glasses ended up being matte and weird-looking all-over.
And my mobile screen has an ugly “water-level” mark where alcohol overspilled.
:facepalm @ self:
Ana: That’s exactly what happened to my eyelash curler! It became matte and just looked downright awful.
Oh dear, sorry to hear about the spilt alcohol 🙁
Ahh…Never thought of this. Haha:) I don’t usually use alcohol to wash the brushes. It’s a good a choice.
Michelle: If you use brush sanitisers like the one from MAC, they contain alcohol anyway. It’s good because it kills the bacteria off your brushes 🙂
Food for thought? 😉
http://makeuputopia.com/magazine/makeup-microbiology-or-why-dirty-makeup-brushes-are-disgusting