Thread: ebay-Q: is it safe/hygienic

to buy brushes on ebay? I mean how could go about cleaning them? Or would it be better to leave brushes alone alltogether and only buy them new?

I personally buy all of mine new. They can be sterilized but you're always running a risk with porous materials.

I don't think you can truly sterilize a used brush without ruining it, or at the least, taking it a part. You can't boil it. You can't "bleach" it. What you can do is give it a thorough cleaning by giving it multiple shampoos, or a soak in Borax. You can also give it a brief soak in Barbasol, although I have never done that. I've bought a couple of used brushes, but only from guys I'm familiar with.

RT

As said above I don't think it would be possible to sterilize a brush without knackering it. Might be wrong though

What about razors what is the best way of sterilizeing them??

I sortof draw the line at a used brush as well. It might survive a dunk in boiling water, but you couldn't leave it in there long enough for it to do any good. And while I think that it's unlikely that you'd catch anything harmful, who knows for sure?

As for razors, I don't think there's much difficulty. The best way, I would suspect, would be to unpin them from the scales and put them in an autoclave or boiling water. But since that isn't practical, you can barbasol or clippercide the blade, or clean it with a disinfectant.

I have to agree with the guys here. If I want to get a brush for display puposes its not a concern but for using I would only use a new brush. You might be able to dunk the think in pine sol or something like that but to me its not worth it.

I just wouldn't. Buy a new one.