What is Your Makeup Brush Made Of?

I think I'm in shock. I was watching a video online about how to clean makeup brushes. (See my prior article about this by clicking here.) So, I'm watching this video, and the guy doing it says something about makeup brushes being made out of either goat or squirrel hair.......screech! Hold on a minute. I might be putting on my makeup every morning with the hair off of a squirrel??? (I like to think of them as rats with big fluffy tails. Ours are a little too aggressive.)

The guy mentioned that they harvest the hair without killing the animals. So, now my mind goes off with other pictures....herding up squirrels like sheep and shearing them bald. I doubt they'd be easy to catch the next time. Or, do they keep them in little cages until their hair grows back and then shave them again? Then, how do they glue the hair into the brush?? It's mind-boggling.

The hair in my makeup brush does sort of look like the squirrels that wander around our property all the time. I've seen this hair before on my patio lounge chair...where a squirrel was sunbathing apparently. Yew....I googled and there's no way to tell what my Bare Escentual brushes are made of. It's natural hair, but the natural hair of what...who knows? Do I want to know?

Some brushes are made from sable hair. Okay, so what's a sable, I wonder? I've always heard that name but never gave it any thought.

So, here I go to wikipedia.com. And here's a nice little picture of a sable for you. He's a small carnivorous mammal which to me resembles a weasel. Yew again.

So, what would I rather be brushing my face with -- hair from a goat, a squirrel, or a weasel cousin? I'm going to try not to think about it. But I will be cleaning my brush more often. Remember, the most important thing is to keep the brush tipped down while cleaning and air-drying so water doesn't get into the handle and melt the glue or rot the wooden handle. I love the way my brushes work, so I'm not going to getting rid of them.

But I need to go wash my face..... ;)