It has been a boon of a discovery to me to stumble across a cheap, simple and non toxic way of cleaning up my brushes and palette after a session of oil painting. I swear, I wasn't even looking, and when I did come across this, I could not believe just how straightforward this is. It's so simple you may laugh in amazement and wonder why, just as I did, we are all taught to use turps, mineral spirits or OMS (odourless mineral spirits) to remove residual oil paint, when in fact, it's plain daft to be using these substances.

Let me explain.

The aim is to remove the oil paint from brushes and the palette.  Using OMS and its cousins, paint is stripped away. As far as cleaning goes, it does work. But there are numerous problems with these substances. Stripping the paint also dries out and can eventually crack your palette. It also 'eats' the synthetic brush bristles or dries out the natural bristles making then brittle and less flexible. Either way, over time it destroys your brushes. Then there is the problem of OMS being a carcinogen that enters your body through inhalation or when you get it all over your skin. And it's a nonrenewable petroleum product. And it's an environmental hazard. Suffice to say, it's pretty bad stuff.

The other way to remove the oil paint from brushes and the palette is not to strip it off, but to dilute it and wash it away. So what other substances dilute oil paint? The answer is other oils. Um, like supermarket variety vegetable cooking oil.

Yes, bog standard vegetable cooking oil. Unlike OMS and it's cousins, vegetable oil is kind to your palette, effectively moisturises or conditions your brushes, is not a carcinogen (actually not harmful at all, you eat it), is a renewable plant resource and not harmful to the environment. It's one huge win all round. 

So how do you use vegetable oil to clean your brushes? Easy peasy. Like this:

 

And what happens with the used oil? It gets tipped into a big jar and left alone to let the paint settle to the bottom. Then the usable oil is tipped out and reused, and the sludge at the bottom is disposed of.

Oh by the way, another little tip. When soaping up the brushes, it's wise to not use your palm to work the soap into the brush. If you do, trace amounts of pigment enter your body via the skin and over time these build up and some of them are quite nasty. I always work the soap into the brush against the bottom of the sink or in another jar or I wear a glove. It's also why I use (environmentally friendly) dishwashing liquid as it gets into the bristles and removes the oil a lot more easily than hard soap.

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