Pine Sol As A Paintbrush Cleaner By Joan Young on - Updated Oct 15, 2011
I have a temporary job this week painting apartments. All the supplies were provided for me, and one of the cleaners there is Pine-Sol. As an all-purpose cleaner it's fine. The scent really puts me off though, so I never use it.
When I wash out paintbrushes, I like to put a squirt of dish soap on the bristles and rub it in near where the bristles connect to the handle. I think this helps remove the gummy paint. But... no dish soap at this location. So I tried Pine-Sol.
It did a great job! I was able to flush out a lot of semi-dried paint and get the brush quite clean. The picture shows a brush that has now been used for five days, all day, so that the paint was really built up high in the bristles. As you can see, it's not perfectly clean, but clean enough that it doesn't make the bristles lie at odd angles and change the paint flow.
I'm not sure that I'd run out to buy some, just for this purpose, but if you have it around and want to try it when cleaning a paint brush, I was happy with the results.
This was purchased at Ace Hardware for $3.49 for 28 ounces.
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Pine Sol 28 oz
My husband has used this for cleaning paint brushes (he's in the industrial powder coating biz so he's up on what works and what doesn't), Pine-sol dissolves the paint like solvents can but also has ingredients in it that protects the bristles of the brush which makes them last longer apparently. I've also used it for my paint brushes but like you I really don't like the smell. Thanks for the info
There is always clean up time after. And the amount of paint that is left in the brush is alot. Will try this, to get the paint out of the brush.
Wow, thanks for the info I am going to try this. I always seem to do lots of painting and HATE cleaning the brushes.