- sylviajast
Tips & Tricks: Beauty Blender
It took me a little while to get onto the Beauty Blender band wagon. When it comes to foundation application I’m all for using your fingers. For me, using my fingers to apply foundation means seamless blending (as the warmth from your fingers helps spread the product and ‘melts’ it into your skin) and a super natural finish. I don’t get foundation brushes at all (this is obviously just a personal preference) so I was sceptical when it came to this ‘super sponge’ to say the least. I decided to try it because everyone was raving about the airbrushed finish it leaves behind.
As soon as I received it, I gave it a go! I placed the sponge under running water, squeezed the excess water out and got to work! I do love how soft and pleasant the sponge feels on your skin. I mixed up my foundation ‘blend’ onto the back of my hand and then dabbed the sponge into a little bit of the foundation and got to work in applying it onto my face in dabbing motions.
The first thing I noticed upon application was that the foundation applied more heavily than if I had applied the foundation with my fingers. I think this is because the foundation in the sponge is quite concentrated, so each dab onto the skin ‘releases’ quite a bit of the foundation. A lot of the foundation also gets sucked into the sponge, so I found that I needed to use more product. The final finish was nice, the sponge does blend out foundation seamlessly, but as I mentioned, the application is heavier which I personally don’t like – I want my foundation to look natural, instead, it was obvious that I was wearing foundation. After my first experience with the beauty blender I put it away and didn’t try using it again for quite a while. I just didn’t see the point as not only does the Beauty Blender apply foundation more heavily than I want it to, I had another tool to wash after use which is a bother. That was until… I saw a Korean makeup artist apply foundation with the Beauty Blender a little differently to how I described above.
After applying the foundation to the back of your hand, don’t dip the Beauty Blender straight into the foundation. Instead, take a regular makeup brush (like a eyeshadow brush), one with a thin-ish handle, and use the end of the handle to apply your foundation in lines/blobs all over your face so that the foundation is distributed evenly. They should look like the lines on my hand below:
Apply more ‘blobs’ to the parts of your face where you want more coverage. If you want sheer coverage, make the blobs/lines more sparsely spaced over your face. Then use your Beauty Blender to blend out the foundation for you. What does this technique result in? The Beauty Blender won’t ‘eat’ up as much of your foundation and it will be applied more evenly as you already physically spread the foundation onto different parts of your face (instead on relying on the beauty blender to ‘squeeze’ out the right amount of foundation for you). I find that this technique results in a much more natural finish and sheerer coverage. Of course you still have to wash the Beauty Blender after each use and I get a similar finish when using my fingers, but there is something nice about applying your foundation with a sponge. Now that I get a finish and result that I love, I am happy with my Beauty Blender! It has been redeemed! If you want to use a lipstick as a blush, apply the lipstick to the back of your hand and then use the Beauty Blender to transfer it onto your cheeks is another fab idea (and it blends the blush wonderfully into your foundation/base).
Do I think it is a must have? Probably not. However, out of all the new generation makeup sponges out there, this one is still the nicest in feel and application. It does feel like it is made out of high quality material (the sponge is super soft and has tiny pores so it feels light even once it has absorbed water) so I think the price of $20 is justified. I bought mine from Kiss & Makeup NY. I wash my beauty blender using baby soap and I find this works really well (I wouldn’t buy the official Beauty Blender cleanser as I think that’s a waste of your monies when soap works so well!).
Do you own a Beauty Blender? Are you a fan? Let me know what you think in the comments below 🙂
Catch ya next time beauties!
Beauty Bee~
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