Miss Mustard Seed Milk Paint – Brush Soap Review

As a new retailer for Miss Mustard Seed’s Milk Paint, I like to try out all her new products, so was excited to receive the new Brush Soap and give it a road test!

I also got a hold of one of the new retailer Colour Boards – WOW!  I found out that each of these little pieces of coloured board were hand painted and finished, and that hundreds were made for retailers all over the world! Good work ladies!

Now, when you come to a workshop or visit my space, you can choose from a range of colours that you can see the finished look of. This compliments my piano display stand featuring frames made in different colours displaying each of the four different finishes you’ll learn about in a MMSMP workshop.

Another new product available is a little whisk you can use for mixing your milk paint:

Now to the new Brush Soap: Here’s the cute packaging …

… and here’s the list of ingredients it contains for those who need to know that kind of thing:

I usually rinse my brushes out in water, as you do with any water based paints. And I pride myself in doing a good job of rinsing out as much paint as I can. So here’s a brush that I had sitting “clean” in my brush tin, ready to use next time:

See all the grunge still sitting in the bottom of the brush? And really, the brush hairs look like they are kinda sticking together a bit clumpish. So I’d heard that even dried up paint grunge in the bottom of your brush could be shifted with this new brush soap …

After running the brush and soap bar under a bit of water, I lathered the brush well rubbing it against the soap:

 

I also rubbed it into the palm of my hand in a circular motion. This soap is not bad for your hands either. Look at the lather below, and you may notice it is tinged a pinkish colour and was getting quite discoloured from the paint that had been left in the brush – must’ve been some Tricycle left in there at least!

 

 

Look at this … all clean, just a tinge of stained pigment in the base of the brush, but so much cleaner than before.

Let’s look at the before pic again (left) compared to the after pic (right):

Looks like it’s just had a shampoo and conditioning – LOL! If you could feel through through this blog, you’d be able to actually feel how amazingly soft and conditioned the brush feels after using the brush soap!

After you have washed your brush, you can wrap your bristles in either brown paper or I use a folded chux cloth, to keep them together as they dry. Looking after your natural bristled brushes will keep them in good use for so much longer.

I also gave my mini wax brush a good clean with the soap. I’m not sure if you can tell as much, but it was left with wax in it and looks a little clumpy because of this. I then washed with the brush soap, and here’s the clean brush all bristly and fluffy on the right:

 

For my Australian subscribers, you can order any Miss Mustard Seed Milk Paint products, by clicking on the Product menu above. You’ll find brush soap and mixers in the accessories section.

MMSMP natural bristle brushes are also available in my online store (Aussie customers only).

To wrap up, here are some brush care tips from Miss Mustard Seed’s Milk Paint page:

Brush Care Tips

• Never leave your brushes soaking in a jar of water or solvent for any length of time.  This will cause the natural bristles to swell and bend.
• Natural bristles are prone to breakage and minor shedding.  Too much pressure on your brush during paint or wax application can increase these tendencies.  Expect more shedding during the first few uses, but that will taper off as you use the brushes.
• Cleaning tips: Clean with a quality brush soap to not only clean, but condition the brush.  Rub the brush gently in a circular motion in the palm of your hand to remove paint, wax or oil.  Rinse well and wrap your brush in paper (construction or kraft paper works best but paper towels will do) and allow to thoroughly dry before use. This will help absorb excess moisture and keep the brush in its original shape.
• If a deep cleaning soak in mineral spirits is necessary, rinse with lacquer thinner after soaking to remove the oily residue, and finally clean with soap and water. Wrap your brush in paper (construction or kraft paper works best but paper towels will do) and allow to thoroughly dry before use.

 

We are authorised retailers for Fusion Mineral Paint and Miss Mustard Seed's Milk Paint in Australia.