Cleaning Oil Paint Brushes with Linseed Oil and Yardley of London Shea Butter Soap

Linseed oil is readily available in many oil painters’ studios.  Yardley London Shea Butter Soap can be purchased from  a dollar store or pound shop on the cheap.  These two ingredients make for the basis of an excellent cleaning system for cleaning oil painting brushes.

Cleaning Technique:

  1. Pour linseed oil into a bowl or jar, basically enough to cover, soak and wash the brushes in.
  2. Soak the brushes in the oil for several minutes.  If the paint is encrusted, this may take more time and a bit of pressing on the bristles may be necessary to work the oil into the brushes.  For stubborn brushes, leave to soak overnight.
  3. Pull the brushes from the oil and wrap them in a cloth to continue soaking for a few hours.
  4. Wipe off the excess oil with a cloth or paper towel.
  5. In a copper bowl(copper is used because with a bit of heat from hot running water soap will quickly soften) soften a small chunk of Yardley London’s Shea Butter soap.  This soap has just the right mix of ingredients necessary to clean and recondition a brush.  Read the label and you will be amazed at what is in it.
  6. The softened soap can be squeezed in hand like putty.  Take each brush and run the bristles into the soap in your hand and pack it in until saturated.
  7. Lay brushes on damp rag and cover for an hour or so to let the soap work.
  8. Rinse the brushes under running water, then place in container with warm water no more than ferrule high for a final rinse soak.  Remove after a few minutes, re-rinse under running water and hang to dry after patting out excess water.  Dry brushes with bristles down. I simply tape them on my studio desk with painters tape.

Discussion on cleaning mechanism.

Linseed Oil is used as a thinner(medium) for oil paint in the studio.  It will soften the oil, but increase the drying time of the paint.  I use an old fashioned stainless steel lunch tray with a few dividers as a paint mixing pan(palette).  Since there is usually a bit of linseed oil left over in one of the wells after a painting session, I use this excess to clean the remaining oil paint out of the pan at the end of the painting session.  The linseed oil quickly cleans the tray.  By rubbing your brush in the remaining oil and then wiping out the excess with a paper towel after painting, your brushes will stay clean and soft on an ongoing basis.

Some artists prefer to pay top dollar for super duper refined linseed oil with a fancy label on it.  I use good old fashioned Boiled Linseed Oil from my local hardware store for around $8.00 per gallon.

Caveat: Safety Precautions:

  1. The question that may arise for some: Is linseed oil toxic to the skin?  If one has this concern, click here, read the following studies, and then one may determine that for oneself. My personal conclusion was that since cleaning brushes does not involve the consumption of Linseed Oil, the effects, if any, according my reading of these studies would be minimal if any in a short exposure period.   Again, this is one person’s opinion, not scientific certified fact.  For me, contact with Boiled Linseed Oil has not caused any skin disorders or rashes.  One may be inclined to wear gloves if one has this concern.
  2. Never store rags soaked in linseed oil in closed boxes or bags.  They build up heat and can spontaneously combust.
  3. Learn how your city prefers you to dispose of hazardous materials.  Many cities sponsor a couple of free collection days each year for such.  Store any old rags etc. in enclosed heavy duty metal storage containers with water added.  Never flush chemicals and oils down your drain as you are likely to get it right back in your own drinking water later. 

Yardley’s Shea Butter Soap is one of the best hand washing soaps around.  I use it to wash my hands after coming in contact with not only paints but varnishes, and other toxic painting chemicals.  Below is an ingredient list.  The chemicals and extracts listed in bold are the ones that clean and soften your brushes.

Chemical Fact: Water is world’s best and most widely found and used solvent!  Water is the “inert ingredient” listed in thousands of household cleaning products.

  • Sodium Tallowate – ( A true Soap)
  • Water – (Natures cleanser)
  • Sodium Palm Kernelate or Cocoz Nucifera(coconut) Oil – (Basically a Moisturizer used in soaps)
  • Glycerin – (This ingredient will make your brushes soft…..click here to read why it is used in skin care products)
  • Fragrance(Parfum) – (the smell good in a soap)
  • Tallow acid – (Helps soap remain hard)
  • Coconut acid – (another firming ingredient and makes soap lather well)
  • Petrolatum – (used as a moisturizing agent in soap)
  • Sodium choride – (helps keep soap solidified)
  • Butyrospermum Parkii (Shea) Butter Extract – (one of nature’s best moisturizers for the skin….will help soften your brush bristles)
  • Buttermilk Powder – (helps soap make a creamy lather)
  • Titanium Dioxide – (a whitener)
  • Tetrasodium Etidronate – (helps stabilize colors introduced into soap)
  • Pentaosodium Pentetate – (helps stabilize color and consistency in soap)

The photos shown above are from a brush cleaning I started yesterday.  Notice in particular the difference between the color of the bowl of fresh linseed oil and the bowl that my brushes were washed in.  The linseed oil is doing the heavy lifting in this cleaning method.  The soap is final touch and conditioner.

On a final note, I suspect if one uses a different type of oil for an oil painting medium, say sunflower oil, it is likely to work just as well.  For that matter, olive oil makes a decent brush cleaner.

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The First Greek Book - 15.7MB

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Victim of King Leopold of Belgium

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Nov. 5. 1898 Forest and Stream Pg. 371-372

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July 2, 1898 Forest and Stream,

Fresh-Water Angling. No. IX.—The Two Crappies. BY FRED MATHER.

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July, 16, l898 Forest and Stream Pg. 48

Tuna and Tarpon.

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Popular Mechanics Archive

Click here to access the Internet Archive of old Popular Mechanics Magazines – 1902-2016

Click here to view old Popular Mechanics Magazine Covers

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Target Practice

Nov. 12, 1898 Forest and Stream Pg. 396

The Veterans to the Front.

Ironton. O., Oct. 28.—Editor Forest and Stream: I mail you a target made here today by Messrs. E. Lawton, G. Rogers and R. S. Dupuy. Mr. Dupuy is seventy-four years old, Mr. Lawton seventy-two. Mr. Rogers [...] Read more →

What’s the Matter?

A rhetorical question? Genuine concern?

In this essay we are examining another form of matter otherwise known as national literary matters, the three most important of which being the Matter of Rome, Matter of France, and the Matter of England.

Our focus shall be on the Matter of England or [...] Read more →

Indian Modes of Hunting – Setting Fox Traps

Aug. 13, 1898 Forest and Stream, Pg. 125

Game Bag and Gun.

Indian Modes of Hunting. III.—Foxes.

The fox as a rule is a most wily animal, and numerous are the stories of his cunning toward the Indian hunter with his steel traps.

Chronological Catalog of Recorded Lunar Events

In July of 1968, the National Aeronautics and Space Administration(NASA), published NASA Technical Report TR R-277 titled Chronological Catalog of Recorded Lunar Events.

The catalog begins with the first entry dated November 26th, 1540 at ∼05h 00m:

Feature: Region of Calippus2 Description: Starlike appearance on dark side Observer: Observers at Worms Reference: [...] Read more →

The Legacy of Felix de Weldon

Felix Weihs de Weldon, age 96, died broke in the year 2003 after successive bankruptcies and accumulating $4 million dollars worth of debt. Most of the debt was related to the high cost of love for a wife living with Alzheimer’s. Health care costs to maintain his first wife, Margot, ran $500 per [...] Read more →

Catholic Religious Orders

Saint Francis of Assisi, founder of the mendicant Order of Friars Minor, as painted by El Greco.

Catholic religious order

Catholic religious orders are one of two types of religious institutes (‘Religious Institutes’, cf. canons 573–746), the major form of consecrated life in the Roman Catholic Church. They are organizations of laity [...] Read more →

A Conversation between H.F. Leonard and K. Higashi

H.F. Leonard was an instructor in wrestling at the New York Athletic Club. Katsukum Higashi was an instructor in Jujitsu.

“I say with emphasis and without qualification that I have been unable to find anything in jujitsu which is not known to Western wrestling. So far as I can see, [...] Read more →

U.S. Plant Variety Protection Act – Full Text

WIPO HQ Geneva

UNITED STATES PLANT VARIETY PROTECTION ACT

TITLE I – PLANT VARIETY PROTECTION OFFICE Chapter Section 1. Organization and Publications . 1 2. Legal Provisions as to the Plant Variety Protection Office . 21 3. Plant Variety Protection Fees . 31

CHAPTER 1.-ORGANIZATION AND PUBLICATIONS Section [...] Read more →

Travels by Narrowboat

Oh Glorious England, verdant fields and wandering canals…

In this wonderful series of videos, the CountryHouseGent takes the viewer along as he chugs up and down the many canals crisscrossing England in his classic Narrowboat. There is nothing like a free man charting his own destiny.

Cocktails and Canapés

From The How and When, An Authoritative reference reference guide to the origin, use and classification of the world’s choicest vintages and spirits by Hyman Gale and Gerald F. Marco. The Marco name is of a Chicago family that were involved in all aspects of the liquor business and ran Marco’s Bar [...] Read more →

The Intaglio Processes for Audubon’s Birds of America

Notes on the intaglio processes of the most expensive book on birds available for sale in the world today.

The Audubon prints in “The Birds of America” were all made from copper plates utilizing four of the so called “intaglio” processes, engraving, etching, aquatint, and drypoint. Intaglio [...] Read more →

A Crock of Squirrel

A CROCK OF SQUIRREL

4 young squirrels – quartered Salt & Pepper 1 large bunch of fresh coriander 2 large cloves of garlic 2 tbsp. salted sweet cream cow butter ¼ cup of brandy 1 tbsp. turbinado sugar 6 fresh apricots 4 strips of bacon 1 large package of Monterrey [...] Read more →

Naval Stores – Distilling Turpentine

Chipping a Turpentine Tree

DISTILLING TURPENTINE One of the Most Important Industries of the State of Georgia Injuring the Magnificent Trees Spirits, Resin, Tar, Pitch, and Crude Turpentine all from the Long Leaved Pine – “Naval Stores” So Called.

Dublin, Ga., May 8. – One of the most important industries [...] Read more →

A History of the Use of Arsenicals in Man

The arsenicals (compounds which contain the heavy metal element arsenic, As) have a long history of use in man – with both benevolent and malevolent intent. The name ‘arsenic’ is derived from the Greek word ‘arsenikon’ which means ‘potent'”. As early as 2000 BC, arsenic trioxide, obtained from smelting copper, was used [...] Read more →

Curing Diabetes With an Old Malaria Formula

For years in the West African nation of Ghana medicine men have used a root and leaves from a plant called nibima(Cryptolepis sanguinolenta) to kill the Plasmodium parasite transmitted through a female mosquito’s bite that is the root cause of malaria. A thousand miles away in India, a similar(same) plant [...] Read more →