I have a couple of brushes and not always I have the time to clean them properly before each use. They usually take more than just one night to get completely dry, so I clean them with shampoo&conditioner only about 1x per week.
But all other times, I do use a quick fix to clean them.
Currently I'm using Sephora's brush cleanser (the travel size, that was about 9€ for 50ml, auch) and a towel.
I don't use paper towels, because I feel they are very wasteful. I mean I don't want to use stuff I don't really NEED. So regular towels are the best, while being at home!
I took my angled brush (that wasn't cleaned properly for a week!) that I use for gel liners, and I find it to be extremely hard to clean (especially because it's hard to take off from skin too!), brush cleanser and a towel.
The towel doesn't have to be new, I use old ones that none would be missing in case something doesn't want to get off from them.
Spray 1-2x on the brush and wait a couple of seconds.
Swipe the brush on the towel.
Repeat this step as long as it needed. Usually I only do it once, but since this was a gel liner brush, I had to repeat it a couple of times (about 5). For my face brush (stippling) I repeat it twice, for my eye brush just once and so on.
And your brush is clean!
I really like this way of cleaning, because then I can just use my brush afterwards. It's extremely useful for cleaning my stippling brush, because I wouldn't want to put on all the bacteria on the foundation all over my face again!
I have the MAC cleanser too, but I'm waiting to use up the Sephora cleanser first since MACs container just sucks. It doesn't have the spray pump, just a damn weird cap and you use a lot of product just to clean one brush!
I had my Sephora's Brush Cleanser since January and I love it. It smells great and it's practically the only brush cleanser I can get my hands on. I have to go to Italy to get it, but it's worth it. Tho it's pretty expensive, so next time I'm going to get the 250ml one... :)
How do you clean your brushes?