Pro Hack: Learning to Precondition Your Paint Brush

In recent times, there’s been a lot of buzz about preconditioning paintbrushes on the internet. However, there is still little information available as to what exactly it means, why you should do it, and, most importantly, how you should do it.

In the context of paintbrushes, preconditioning means conducting a procedure on the paintbrush before dipping it in any medium of paint. This brush-care technique is considered to be one of the quickest and most effective ways to cut straight lines and ensure that your brushes last longer. 

Why must one precondition their paintbrush?

It is important to precondition your paintbrush as it ensures minimal damage to the bristles. Furthermore, it also enables you to clean the paint out of the brush faster and in a secure manner. This is possible because the additional layer of precondition stops the paint from entering the brush’s pores and increases the brush’s lifetime. Lastly, and most importantly, preconditioning your paintbrush will allow you to gain more precision in your strokes and give a unique quality to your painting.

How to precondition your paintbrush

Let’s start with a new, unused brush to get optimal results. First, you need to dip the brush in a fabric softener. Make sure that the brush is dipped all the way through, to the ferrule (the ferrule refers to the spot where the bristles disappear under the metal housing of the brush).

Next, you must wrap the brush in plastic overnight. This will allow the fabric softener to seep into the pores of your brush’s bristles and seal them. Apart from giving a better finish to your strokes, it will also allow you to use the paint optimally as it doesn’t get soaked in the pores of your brush.

Finally, you wash the brush using warm water ONLY. That’s it! Now your brush is ready to give you great control, straighter lines, and live a longer life!

But how often must one precondition their paintbrush?

The preconditioning process doesn’t need to be repeated after every painting project. Touching the bristles, before and after the precondition, should give you a fair idea of the difference. Once you are done with a project and have cleaned your brush, simply touching and examining the bristles will give you a fair idea as to whether or not your paint brush needs preconditioning.

However, we suggest that to gain optimal painting experience, you should precondition after a heavy painting project to take better care of your paintbrush. It may seem like a huge task, but believe us, it doesn’t take longer than 2 minutes to precondition your paintbrush. If you’re not sold on saving big bucks on your paintbrushes, perhaps knowing that preconditioning your paintbrush will enable you to get a competitive edge over other painters will push you to do it! Either way, it’s preferred by professionals as it ensures a faster clean-up process and brush longevity.