Have you ever accidentally left your paintbrush in water for too long and come back to discover your brush ruined and unusable? Well same! Luckily, somewhere in the depths of my memory, I thought I had heard that you can use hand sanitizer to remove dried up paint from your paintbrushes, and since I had some very crunchy options on hand, I decided to give it a go!
Please note that I have only tested this on paintbrushes used with acrylic paint.
Materials you'll need:
a jar or container that won't be used for food
your dried up paintbrush
a liquid hand sanitizer
Here's a one minute video where I walk you through the entire process and show the results:
If you prefer reading tutorials instead of watching, here is a step by step guide to bringing your dried, ruined paintbrushes back to life:
Pour hand sanitizer into your container. You need enough liquid that your brush bristles will be completely submerged.
Leave your paintbrush in the hand sanitizer for some time. I left mine for 24 hours, and thought that might be too much, but it worked out fine. This step will probably depend on how dried out your paintbrush was too begin with.
You'll know the process is finished when you are able to push the bristles against the side of the container and they are softer and more moveable than when you started.
Push the brush into the bottom of the container and agitate it so that any remaining pigment can come loose.
Wash your brush with soap and water, and there you have it!
It really is that simple, and I was shocked at how well this worked.
Would you try this art hack on your dried out paintbrushes?
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