How to properly clean and disinfect your beauty products

March 18, 2020 at 11:00PM by CWC

These days, keeping clean is top of mind for everyone. We’re washing our hands more often, wiping down our countertops on the reg, and tossing our clothes in the laundry after a single wear. One more thing you might want to add to your “daily disinfecting” list? Your beauty products.

According to the CDC, in order to protect yourself from Covid-19, you should “clean and disinfect high-touch surfaces daily in household common areas,” because from what we understand the virus can live on surfaces and transfer when you touch them. With that in mind, it’s a good idea to regularly disinfect any makeup or skin-care products you’re coming into contact with on the reg (which, for what it’s worth, is something you should be doing whether or not there’s a global pandemic going around).

The CDC states that solutions with 70 percent alcohol (or more) serve as effective disinfectants, so celebrity makeup artist Mari Shten recommends keeping a spray bottle filled with alcohol (Jason Teatro, microbiologist and author of The Germ Files, suggests using nine parts undiluted alcohol mixed with one part distilled water) and using it to clean your products at least once a week. “You can use it for sanitizing the space you’re using, any powder makeup like pressed powder, eyeshadow, and blushes, and certain lipsticks,” says Mari. Just hold the bottle 10 inches away from the product, then spritz it generously and let it dry. 

You should also be regularly cleaning the outside of any products you’re using, like skin-care bottles, and that goes double for the ones you share with other people in your household.  “If you have anything that you’re using in the shower and is being shared, you might want to give it a good soap and water wash before you pass it along to someone else,” Teatro told Well+Good earlier this week. He explains that this is an easy way to ensure you aren’t passing the virus along to someone else who might be using the same shower. And while you’re at it, wipe down the outside of your Purell bottles, too.

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There are a few other things she recommends doing to ensure your space is extra safe: Clean your makeup table, chair, and chair arms with a disinfecting wipe, wash your makeup bag (either with soap and water or in the washing machine), and shampoo your brushes, each at least once a week, according to Shten. And of course, be sure to wash your hands with soap and water before putting on makeup and skin care… and regularly throughout the day also.

This derm-approved trick will keep your hands from drying out, no matter how many 20-second washes you’re putting them through. Plus, the myths an MD wants you to stop believing about COVID-19.

Author Zoe Weiner | Well and Good
Selected by CWC