The Magical Sponge: The BeautyBlender

I am loving the BeautyBlender!

Retails for $19.95 at Sephora

Reasons to Love:

• It is super cute!
Who doesn't love a little squishy tear shaped sponge that comes in lovely colors (especially their standard cuddly pink color).
• It feels nice.
Lightweight and cushy it glides over your skin.
• You only need one!
This is the makeup tool you get when you only want to use one tool and you are done with your pile of makeup brushes.
• Most importantly it gets the job done superbly!
It really does blend foundations, concealers, etc into your skin beautifully. The BeautyBlender gives you perhaps the most natural effect with your makeup.

How do you use it?

It comes with an adorable little use and care instruction pamphlet that tells you pretty much everything you need to know.

Basically you use the BeautyBlender when it is damp. So you run it under the faucet to dampen it and then gently squeeze out any extra water. If you are wondering why, I think it makes sense. I would assume that they are telling you to dampen your Blender so that it wont absorb as much of your product. Also so that it will glide over your skin better, giving you the natural effect which is why you bought it in the first place.

I apply my BB cream and concealer with the BeautyBlender. For my BB cream I place the product on the back of my hand and, after dampening my Blender, I use the Blender to place the product on the areas of my face that need the most coverage. I do this with a swiping motion. Then I stipple it into my skin with a dabbing motion. I cover my whole face using this swipe and dab technique. This has been one of the best ways I have used the Blender.

For my concealer I just dab so that I get a thicker coverage.

Sometimes I apply my BB cream with my hands by lightly massaging it all over my face. Then I come in with the BeautyBlender and dab over the product to give it a nicer more natural finish. My favorite face brush used to be the Sephora Professionnel airbrush concealer 57 because it would feather my concealer onto my face giving me a barely there effect. With the BeautyBlender I get a similar effect with less effort.

How do you clean it?

I contemplated using some of my brush shampoo to clean the Blender, but decided to purchase the brand's own cleaner. I had read some reviews in which people had said that their BeautyBlender was ruined by using the wrong cleaner. I purchased the BeautyBlender solid sponge cleaner because it travels well and I thought I might be able to get more uses out of it. It retails for $15.95 at Sephora. I have to say that I used up the cleaner pretty fast and am now down to the dredges, so I don't know whether I will by the solid cleaner again or opt for the traditional liquid BeautyBlender cleaner.

It is always sad to see makeup marring my lovely little sponge so for a while I took to cleaning it every day after I used it. I also did this to keep away any bacteria or particles since I have acne prone skin. Please note that when you first clean it some of the dye will come out of the sponge, don't worry the color will just lighten a little. (You can see in the picture above where the tip of my Blender bleached out a little.) I have since taken to cleaning it every other day so I don't stress my sponge too much, because I do not think that it was designed for excessive cleaning and can get little tears and raised patches.

When I clean my Blender with the solid cleaner I wet the sponge and wipe it on the soap gently then I massage the sponge to bring the cleaner to a lather. Then I squeeze out extra water into the sink and with that water goes the makeup that was stuck in the sponge. I use a cow milking technique by close my fingers downward to force out the water, makeup, and cleaner. I then add a little more water to the top and continue till all of the cleaner is out. You can repeat this process to get all of the makeup out of you Blender. Just remember to be gentle. Then when you are done place it on top of its packaging.

Just to geek out about the design.

I love the simple, yet clever design of the BeautyBlender and its packaging. The plastic cylinder that it comes in acts as your drying stand and storage container. You place the damp Blender on top of the cylinder and when it finishes drying it shrinks and falls back into its case to await your next use. I also store the instructions in the lid which I fit under the packaging. It is such a simple design, but considering how many other products don't think to utilize their packaging I am suitably pleased and give them 5 Stars for their packaging design.