Here I am again, outing myself on the internet with my disgusting makeup bag. I’m on a bit of a decluttering, redecorating and deep cleaning binge where I go around my house and deep clean, reorganise and decorate certain things in my house. One such item that I’ve been wanting to deep clean for ages is my makeup pouch. I have owned this Paul and Joe pouch for well over a decade I’m pretty sure at this point and I will be honest and say I’ve only washed it once since I’ve owned it. Well, today we give it a deep clean and I wanted to share the process just incase someone else also needs to push to do so.

I tend to wash my makeup brushes once a week and I constantly clean my makeup to make sure everything is as clean and disinfected as I could. In saying that, once my items are clean, I pop them all back into my makeup pouch. My makeup pouch is small but it holds all my current makeup that I use on a daily basis and I do have spare makeup kept clean in drawers on my vanity. My daily makeup isn’t anything overly special but I do use up my products before opening something new. My makeup pouch comes with me on holidays and nights away so it’s a very well traveled item and most of my friends can’t imagine me using anything different as I’ve just had this particular pouch for so long. It’s been so long since I had deep cleaned my makeup bag to the point I can’t quite remember the original colour of the lining.

STEPS:

I started by removing the little tassel on the side of the pouch and the small ducky keychain attached to the zip.

Filling up a bucket with hot water, I added some brightening laundry powder (this is the one I use but you can always just use Napisan). I like the Nellies Oxygen Brightener as it’s strong but also gentle on my garments but I do use it sparingly. I added one scoop to the water and let it dissolve.

With my bucket filled with hot soapy water, I let my makeup pouch soak for a few minutes. I could already see dirt and old makeup coming out of the pouch which gave me lots of hope.

Being a strong believer in a good old scrub cleaning, I grabbed an old toothbrush and some dishwashing liquid and very gently, gave the whole pouch a scrub. This was the step I saw the biggest and fastest change to the pouch. I saw so many old stains lifting without too much effort. I turned my makeup bag inside out and got into all the nooks and crannies as best I could.

After a good scrub, I left the pouch to soak for another hour.

In order to really give this pouch the best clean, I popped it into a laundry delicates bag and popped her into a gentle wash cycle. This step wasn’t exactly necessary but I was putting on a gentle load anyways so I figured it’ll be a good way to give it an extra wash and a good rinse.

The pouch came out absolutely sparkling with only one stain that didn’t budge which is absolutely fine by me. I let the pouch dry on my drying rack over night and in the morning she was fresh, clean and smelt delightful (I love the smell of fresh laundry).

The last step was to put all my clean makeup brushes and makeup back into the pouch and carry on with my life.

FINAL THOUGHTS:

This may be something small and insignificant in the grand scheme of things I actually need to get done but just washing my makeup pouch (yes I know I could have just popped it into the washing machine instead of doing most of it by hand) but I sometimes like the act of taking my time to properly clean something. It makes it more therapeutic in a way and lets me reconnect with the item by showing it its worthy of my time to fix it up. This was just a makeup pouch that came in a makeup set that I’ve owned for a decade but I still really love it. I’ve seen many lovely new makeup bags over the years but I’ve never wanted to replace the one I currently have. I hope to have her for many years to come.

I’ve been asked a few times if the makeup pouch is still available for purchase and I’m sad to say it is not. I think I purchased it sometime between 2012 and 2014 so if you were to find one, it would be from a charity shop, a second hand market or through sheer luck. I know Paul and Joe release different pouch designs often so they do have similar ones but I’ve never seen this particular design since.

If you’re like me and just trying to feel like you’re on top of your life or at least in some kind of control, sometimes cleaning and reorganising the small things can make a huge different. My makeup bag is small but it’s something I use all the time so I don’t see the process of taking my time to clean it as a waste of time. No matter how small something is, it deserves to be clean and to bring you joy. I love my clean makeup pouch and I won’t let so much time pass me until the next time I wash it. I think it may be time to give my travel backpack a wash because … it’s feral at this point.

Note: This is not a sponsored post. All opinions and thoughts expressed are solely my own and not influenced in any way. There are no affiliate links and I do not benefit from any link clicks or purchases made.