Over time you will spend a great deal of your hard-earned money on equipment and special tools to do your job. So it makes sense to take special care in how you carry, clean, and store your tools.

Pastry and art brushes: Boar-bristle brushes should be used for brushing pastry with egg washes or melted butter. If used for basting hot foods with oil or sauces the bristles will be damaged. Reserve these brushes for freshening up plated food with water or a dab of oil. To clean them, soak in a glass filled with warm soapy water. Rinse and dry thoroughly before storing them in your kit. Some stylists like to separate their brushes by whether they use them for water or oil-based solutions—we think that if you clean them carefully after each use it doesn't matter. (FYI—the inexpensive paintbrushes with unfinished wooden handles and natural white bristles sold in hardware stores are identical to many expensive pastry brushes sold in high-end kitchen stores.)

Knives: Protect their blades. Carry them in a knife roll or hard-sided case and use hard-plastic blade guards—for safety and to keep a good edge on the blades. Plan on a yearly trip to a professional knife sharpening service.

Plastic squeeze and spritz bottles: We all have a vast collection of bottles for spraying water or drizzling sauces on food. Sometimes the solutions we use are sticky or oily—and difficult to clean off the inside of small bottles. Take the time between jobs to scrub out plastic bottles with a stiff bottlebrush or soak them in warm soapy water. Even spray bottles for water can use a periodic rinse. Then be sure they are completely dry before returning to your kit—we've had some spray bottles sprout mold because of sitting for too long in the corner of a bin with liquid inside.

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