I know that good quality paintbrushes are expensive and they are a must if you wish to achieve a good standard paint finish.   However as the painting task draws to an end the dreaded subject of cleaning paintbrushes is never far from the mind of any painter whether they be expert or novice.   Either it is half an hour at the kitchen sink wasting copious amount of precious clean water, then there is the cleaning the sink or its opening up a bottle of white spirit or brush cleaner, cleaning and re-cleaning until all trace of the paint disappears, only then to face the difficult decision on how to dispose of the contaminated cleaning agent.

I acknowledge that sometimes it might be necessary for people to clean their paintbrushes, particularly when they have been lightly used and not heavily dirtied and if you are an infrequent painter and believe wet storage is not a sensible option for you, please clean your paintbrushes in the most environmentally friendly way possible.

For the unnecessary cleaning paintbrushes with either water or solvent is not good for the environment, paint contaminated water undoubtedly affects the water course and used solvent cleaners are both difficult to dispose of and should be regarded as chemical waste which ought be kept to a minimum because it is harmful to the environment.

However, deciding not to clean paintbrushes does not mean that they must be discarded as a single use item, for that too would be a waste of resources and environmentally irresponsible.   For there are some simple procedures for prolonging a wet paintbrush that has been used in either waterborne or solvent based paints, that both retains brush shape and wetness ready for future use.

Follow the links below to find instructions on how to stop paintbrushes from going hard without cleaning them.