Saving Brushes – A Tuesday Tip

You finished painting the first coat of your piece a week ago but you’ve been so busy you haven’t been able to get back to it. You did the right thing and wrapped your paint loaded brush in alfoil or glad wrap but alas, a week was a bit long and the brush is as stiff as a board. Can it be saved?
This question has been asked quite a few time in various forums I am a member of recently so after finding one of my brushes in a similar state after last weekends Milk Paint workshop I thought I’d do a quick ‘tip’ post! You can soak your brush in soapy water for three days but it will still look and feel the same. Here’s my process and it works every time.

Firstly, soak the bristles overnight in pure vinegar. I totally forgot to take a pic before I soaked it but it was a completely yellow solid chunk of paint…Milk Paint at that, which is extra hard to remove once dried!
I have heard that to speed up the process you can boil the brush tips in vinegar and water but that’s too many steps for me, means washing a saucepan…and I can’t just plop it in and go on with what I was doing. Plus boiling seems a little harsh!
Next up gently separate the bristles to break the goopy seal of paint, get a hair comb and comb the chunky bits out of the bristles.

Next you need a good quality brush soap to free the rest of the paint bits from the bristles. I use both Fusion Brush Soap and Miss Mustard Seed’s Brush Soap but I have a slight preference for the Fusion as it’s less messy and made with a linseed oil base so it leaves the brush conditioned and soft. It’s non toxic and works equally well with synthetic and natural bristle brushes. Of course it’s much better used before they dry out like this one did…but works wonders in helping to ‘save’ them too.

Squeeze a little Fusion Brush Soap onto the bristles and work it through the bristles with your fingertips.

You can see all the bits of paint loosening from the bristles here.
Then thoroughly rinse under warm running water.Flick out excess water and gently dry with a towel. Perfectly clean and fluffy and ready to use once more!
Fusion Brush Soap is also brilliant for cleaning dried wax from wax brushes!