If you’re like me, an artist, who is sensitive to strong odors or just want to get away from the toxic chemicals used as paint brush cleaners, finding a fairly inexpensive none toxic no odor brush cleaner is a challenge. Since my health, after using so called no odor yet toxic brush cleaners, declined rapidly, it became a priority to make my studio non toxic. In doing so, the first thing on the agenda was replacing the toxic brush cleaner ( Odorless Turpenoid) with something less hazardous to my health. If you go thru what I have gone thru for the last several months, it would be your priority as well. I have to say that it’s been hell.
After getting rid of the toxic brush cleaner, I’ve relied on either walnut oil or olive oil to keep my brushes clean. Walnut oil, a friend to oil paints and a great medium, has done a fantastic job, unfortunately it’s getting harder to find at grocery stores. If you use walnut oil on your brushes, don't let them sit around too long without washing them first with soap and water to get rid of the oil. The brushes will harden as the walnut oil dries. Yeah, I could order some Turpenoid natural at double the cost of walnut oil... not. My other alternative has been olive oil. It’s dirt cheap and I find it around three bucks for a sixteen once bottle at Aldi’s. Olive oil does great job in cleaning brushes. The problem with it is that, like with Turpenoid natural, you need to remove all traces of it from the brush using soap and water. Unfortunately, all brushes don’t take to water kindly. Take Bob Ross brushes, made from hog bristles for example, once introduced to water the bristle begin to flare. They can be brought back to normal however, with a lot of work and plenty of time.
In my search for the perfect, affordable non toxic brush cleaner, I came across Bristle Magic. Bristle Magic is a paint brush cleaner and re-conditioner. It’s biodegradable, non-toxic, non-flammable and supposedly no fumes. Notice that I didn’t mention no-odor. Neither did the bottle. I had some questions regarding the stuff so I contacted the maker via their web site, even got a confirmation of them receiving it and a statement that they will contact me shortly. Never heard from them. It was up to me to locate someone that sold the stuff. I finally found a couple of sites that carried it. A thirty two ounce bottle cost me about twenty three bucks which includes delivery cost. But don’t go out and order some for yourself quite yet. Keep reading and the decide if this is for you. This is my initial accounts of using Bristle Magic for the first time and is more of a first impression of the stuff. Your experience may differ from mine considering I’ve had to go thru de-tox for several weeks and still have some issues from using toxic brush cleaners and paints.
The first thing I did after opening the bottle, was to sniff it. Hmm, an odor and it was a familiar one, but just couldn’t place it. I poured enough into my brush cleaning system to cover the screen at the bottom. It also stated that you have to clean the brushes with soap and water after washing them in Bristle Magic. I already had my other cleaning systems ready to go. My paint palette had plenty of dried out oil paint from a painting I did a few days ago so the first thing I needed to do was to clean my glass paint palette. I took a brush, wet it in the solution and brushed it on to the dried out paints. I let it soak for about five minutes or so, took a wad of paper towels and began wiping. Not much was happening so I decided to scrape it using my knife.
It took me about fifteen minutes to clean my paint palette, about the same time as it would using walnut oil in the same manner. Okay so cleaning the palette was nothing to write home about and wasn’t any easier with this stuff. Maybe, it really worked wonders on brushes, after all the bottle says, “artists love this stuff”. The viscosity of this brush cleaner was about the same as the toxic cleaners so the paint should settle to the bottom rather than staying suspended as with walnut or olive oil. Both are much more viscous but eventually, the solids do settle to the bottom of my system. I placed some oil paints as usual on my glass palette and began painting using large brushes, as in wet on wet technique. However, I don’t use Bob Ross brushes except for the liner brush so swishing them In water won’t cause them harm.
After painting, I had a few brushes loaded with paint, wiped the excess on a paper towel and began washing them in Bristle Magic. I have to admit that it did a nice job cleaning my brushes although I had to wash them several times before they were totally clean, Walnut and olive oils did it much quicker in my opinion and I didn’t have to wash my brushes several times. By the time I got to my last large brush, the smell of this stuff was really starting to get to me. I started feeling nauseous and a head ache was coming on, perhaps a migraine, so I thought. It just turned out to be a head ache caused by the nasty smell of the stuff. The maker says that it smells like oil but to me it was something else. After a while, it came to me where I had smelled that odor in the past. Car wax has the same smell except you’re out doors and really don’t notice it. I took a whiff of some car wax I had laying around. The car wax was a little weaker as it was pretty old but had the similar smell. I had another recall of the same smell a few minutes later, so I began searching for the source. I found the old reliable Kiwi black shoe polish and opened it up and took a whiff. There it was, the same exact smell but Bristle Magic was much, much stronger. Low VOC is claimed on the bottle however voc‘s never the less. For some, any amount of voc’s can be harmful. Here are a couple of links. Find out for yourself.
http://cdn.dickblick.com/msds/DBH_05733XXXX.pdf
https://www.epa.gov/indoor-air-quality-iaq/volatile-organic-compounds-impact-indoor-air-quality
Well there went twenty three bucks down the drain as I’m sticking with
my walnut or olive oils. They’re cheaper, no odor, non toxic and walnut
oil can be used as a medium.
In all fairness to the company, I did have a good experience using the stuff. Forgetting to clean a 2" brush filled with colored gesso, the next morning I found it hard as a rock. I didn't want to just throw it away as it would have been a waste of money and a waste of a decent brush, so I thought I'd give Bristle Magic a try. I let it soak over night,then washed it. To my surprise my brush was like new. All that dried out clumped paint was gone. It actually did what it was supposed to on acrylic paints and gesso.
I found another 1½" brush that had some dried out oil paint by the ferule making my brush a bit stiffer than usual. Once again I let it soak over night and washed it with soap and water to remove the Bristle Magic. Sure enough, my brush was like new once again. Bristle Magic works like it's supposed to. Too bad it smells so damn awful!
Read my review on Turpenoid Natural next
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