Winsor & Newton Brush Cleaner & Restorer, 4.0-oz Bottle

This is excellent for removing paint--fresh or dried--and is non-toxic for skin or any surfaces. I count on this--both for my painting work and for multi household emerhencies.

This works wonderfully, but please do not leave your brushes (especially synthetic) in the solution for longer than a minute, tops. Take a small amount, about two fingers, in a glass jar and swizzle the dried brush into it. Dunk it in water every 30 seconds to a minute to see the progress. For a fully harded paintbrush it will take a max of a few minutes of this. If you're not aware, acrylic paint is a kind of plastic and so are synthetic bristles. This will dissolve the acrylic paint but if you let it sit it will eventually work on the bristles too. It isn't quite as strong to have that take less than 20-40 minutes, so you'll have plenty of working time. People who've ruined their brushes have probably soaked too long and underestimated the power of the solvent. This works amazingly if you're rational and cautious about it and remain aware of the strength of the solvent. I had a brush frozen solid with paint and it is like new again. 100% recommend. Fumes are fairly minimal but remember your high school lab safety and don't shove your nose in the glass or anything, it does have a bit of a smell. Might be worth noting it is also hydrophobic so when you rinse you will need to rinse well. A gentle soap wouldn't hurt if you're really worried but running water was enough for my brushes.

Works really well, you just need patience. For really dried out, damaged brushes you'll need to have the bristles submerged in the solution for several hours (possibly up to 24 for the worst damage). Then wash it out and reshape the bristles into a point. No complaints. Can make old brushes look like new.

Why or why didn't I take better care of my brushes!!!!! I refuse to throw them away even if they are caked up with oil, I just refuse and people, this stuff softens the bristles, but so far that's it. I'm going to keep working with it and will post again in a few days. Maybe I'm looking for "some kind of miracle" oil brush cleaner.Follow-up: This works really well on brushes right after use. Cleans them nicely. As for the older dried out brushes it softens the bristles. I let them soak for 2 days and then I worked with dawn, brush soap and water and I'm doing the same routine one more day. So the product does work to a degree. Its a small bottle so keep that in mind. For myself, I may make another purchase because I do like what has happened with those old, old brushes that I didn't want but didn't want to throw away.

The cleaner came exactly as the picture shown and works pretty well. It was able to remove a good amount of dried acrylic paint from my mishandled paint brushes. The longer you leave your brushes in, the more paint comes out. You don't need a whole lot, just enough to cover the fibers/bristles. It really only loosens the dried paint so you will have to run it under some water and try to rub out the particles that's stuck between fibers after you're done. Be warned however, that if your paint brushes has painted handles, this can affect it so try to keep the handle and most of the ferrule out of the solution. It's some sort of solvent or alcohol but does not degrade any of my plastic or synthetic fiber brushes. The brushes I used it on had raylon or nylon fibers/bristles. It also really doesn't even smell unless you put it up to your nose. I had mine in a small cup a foot away on a table I was using and didn't notice a smell at all. I left my brushes in for a couple hours and there was no noticeable decrease in fluid so evaporation should not be an issue either. One tip when using this is to make sure the brush's fibers/bristles are not sitting on the bottom of the container so it doesn't fray. I taped my brushes to the side of my cup so that the fibers/bristles were suspended in the fluid.

It worked to get the dried paint out if my brushes had a harder time getting top coats out tho and didn't fix the brushes should get more for how much I'm paying

Had several (6) very nice brushes that I thought I had ruined. Used this product and they are all back up and usable. Haven't painted with them yet so don't know how that will go, but going from being rock hard to pliable - wow. Great stuff!

I used the product to remove eight (8) year old paint stains I had on a jacket. I attempted to remove the stains with many other products , but none of them work . I purchased the Winsor Newton brush cleaner and I was able to remove the paint stains. It’s expensive, but it works.