5 Simple Steps to Deep Clean Your Beauty Bag
The Essential Guide to Deep Cleaning Your Beauty Bags
If the past year has taught us anything it’s how many germs, bacteria and bugs lurk on every surface and on everything we touch! Never before have we been more aware of hygiene and cleanliness from washing hands to making sure anything we put near our mouths and faces are clean and sanitary, like our makeup, and more specifically, our makeup bag
Can you remember the last time you cleaned your cosmetic bag? A frightening report by Dr Amreen Bashir and Professor Peter Lambert from Aston university showed that a staggering nine out of ten makeup bags are home to superbugs like E.coli (responsible for urinary tract infections and food contamination) and staphylococci (a very nasty bacteria). Yikes!
Our unique makeup bags are designed to be robust enough to withstand years of daily use and still look sparkly new, so let us take you through some simple steps of how to clean a makeup bag, wash bag or vanity case and keep them looking great and bacteria-free.
How to clean a makeup bag
1. Empty your bag
We can't stress this enough, check the expiry date on your products and discard any that have gone beyond the expiration date. We created a handy makeup expiration chart to show how long you can keep cosmetics for and how to check the packaging for expiry dates, plus the length of time they can live in your makeup bag before becoming contaminated. See the guide further down in this blog.
Dr Bashir from Aston University sad: "Consumers' poor hygiene practices when it comes to using make-up... is very worrying when you consider that we found bacteria such as E.coli -- which is linked with faecal contamination -- breeding on the products we tested".
2. Turn your makeup bag inside out
When it comes to best hygiene practices, keeping the inside of the bag squeaky clean is more important than the outside, and the best best way to get to all those nooks and crannies is to turn it inside out. A word of warning, it's easy to crease the outer fabric when you do this, but don't worry! There is a genius crease-busting hack later on in this post.
3. Clean the lining
Victoria Green makeup bags all have lined seams to ensure that any spillages stay on the inside of the makeup bag instead of all over the contents of your handbag - therefore it's important to dislodge any debris and old makeup that may have gathered there over time.
The best way to do this is to simply take a new (thank you to Helen S for this great tip in our comments!) dry toothbrush to reach right into all those corners. Then take a cotton wool pad soaked in eye makeup remover to wipe away any makeup smudges and stains that may have accumulated.
With your makeup bag lining now clean and smudge-free, let’s eliminate those nasty germs. All you will need is an antibacterial household spray - anything will do, as long as it doesn't contain bleach, which will damage your makeup bag. Simply spray it on and use a clean cloth to work it into the corners. Then all you have to do is leave it to dry, preferably overnight.
4. Once it’s dry...
carefully turn it the right way again and give the outside a good spritz with your antibacterial spray, wiping off the excess with a clean dry cloth. All Victoria Green makeup bags are made from quality waterproof and wipe-clean materials, specially designed to be easily cleaned.
Now for the crease-busting hack. All you need is an ordinary hairdryer. Switch it to the hottest setting and gently warm the outer fabric, taking care to keep the dryer moving so it doesn't get too hot in one spot. When the fabric on the beauty bag is warm it softens slightly and you can easily rub away the creases - We use this technique in our photoshoots to keep our makeup bags and wash bags in good shape!
5. Keep it regular
I recommend giving any makeup bag or wash bag in regular use a deep clean once a month, with a weekly top-up spritz of antibacterial spray on a weekly basis, always ensuring the interior of the beauty bag is thoroughly dry before zipping it back up again.