Just realized I blew $85 on brush soap before figuring out plain baby shampoo works better
I paint minis most weekends and kept buying those fancy brush soaps at the hobby shop for about 4 months. Last Tuesday I added it up and I was at $85, which is nuts because my brushes still got stiff and splayed anyway. Then a guy at my local game store in Dayton told me he has used baby shampoo on his sable brushes for 6 years and never had a problem. I tried it that night, the cheap $3 bottle from the grocery, and my size 2 round came out softer than it ever did with the soap. Now I have a drawer full of the expensive stuff that I don't even want to touch. Does anyone else use shampoo on their brushes, or am I going to wreck them long term?
The weird thing about brush soap is it's mostly just saponified oil with a fancy label, so you're basically paying for the tin. Baby shampoo has no dyes or perfumes in the plain kind, which is why it doesn't dry out the hairs like the scented stuff can. I'd still keep one bar of the good soap around for when you get oil paint or heavy gunk in there, since shampoo won't cut that as fast.