How To Clean A Makeup Blender

Mmmkay, mind upward: Yous need to clean your Beautyblender and makeup sponges way, style more frequently than y'all currently do (which I'm guessing is, um, once or twice a twelvemonth max?). Seriously—take it from me, someone who genuinely hates cleaning my makeup brushes, when I say that actually taking five minutes to just do the damn thing is significantly meliorate than letting your Beautyblender or makeup sponge continue to sit and fester with congenital-up skin gunk and crud, makeup, skin oils, and bacteria. Yum!

This isn't to gross you lot out or scare you (fine, maybe a lil bit, if it will really become you to clean your sponges), it's just facts. Even if your Beautyblender or sponge is "antimicrobial," that doesn't mean it magically stays clean—antimicrobial properties just make the sponge a less hospitable environment for bacteria to grow. Just that doesn't practise anything to aid the build-upwards that can lead to breakouts, irritation, and inflammation. Which brings united states of america to...

How ofttimes should you lot make clean a Beautyblender?

In a perfect world? After each use. Just since that'll never happen, most experts concur that you should clean your Beautyblender or makeup sponge at to the lowest degree one time a week . "Ideally, you'd wash all of your makeup tools every single solar day, but I know this is unrealistic," dermatologist Geeta Yadav, MD, founder of Skin Science Dermatology, has told Cosmo. So instead, stick to cleaning your Beautyblender weekly. "Make information technology a Sunday-dark activity so that you can start your week off fresh," she added.

Luckily, washing your makeup sponge actually isn't that fourth dimension-consuming. It'due south 2021, baby, and there are a trillion makeup brush cleaners and tried-and-tested YouTube tutorials to guide y'all through the process, whether you lot're working with a cleansing pad, your paw, or just some dish soap. Continue reading, and please wash your sponges tonight, k?

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How to clean a BeautyBlender with a pad

The key to cleaning a makeup sponge? Using enough friction that you lot actually clean it—but not so much that you damage it (piddling sponges are delicate, y'all). That'southward why I dearest using a texturized silicone pad—it gives me a gentle but effective surface to deep-clean my Beautyblender without tearing or snagging it. Most makeup brush mitts will do the play a joke on, but my personal faves are Beautyblender's Continue Information technology Clean (it slips over your hand, so it's v convenient) and Sephora Collection'south Solid Brush and Sponge Cleaner Mini (it comes with a bar of soap). Here'south what you do:

Pace 1: Moisture your sponge. Gently squeeze your sponge under running water until it'south totally wet.
Step ii: Add some lather. Clasp a cleansing liquid or rub a bar of soap forth the paw so it's fully saturated (I adopt a basic, unscented soap like Dr. Bronner's Pure-Castile Baby Soap).
Pace 3: Scrub and rinse. Run your sponge forth the silicone nibs until your makeup stains are gone—no wringing or pulling—and then rinse until the h2o runs clear.
Step 4: Dry. Ready your sponge aside and let it air-dry with plenty of apportionment (psst: drying your makeup sponge in a closed space can actually lead to mildew).

How to clean a Beautyblender with lather

Listen, soap isn't the gentlest option on this list, just information technology's definitely the strongest and most effective—and, you know, sometimes very, very needed, depending on your sponge's level of dirty. Whether you prefer to use a liquid cleanser or a bar of soap is up to you, but both methods volition give you the same squeaky-make clean upshot. Here's how:

Step one: Wet your sponge. Squeeze your makeup sponge under running h2o until it'southward completely saturated and expanded.
Step ii: Add the cleanser. If yous're using a liquid cleanser, squirt the soap directly onto the wet sponge and begin massaging, pressing, and pushing it into the palm of your wet mitt to work the soap into the center of the sponge. If you're using bar lather, rub the sponge back and forth against the bar while applying pressure to build upward a lather.
Step 3: Rinse. Squeeze the sponge underneath clean h2o until the water runs clear, and so squeeze the sponge and gear up it bated to dry out.

Merely be careful: Lather tin be harsh and drying, so doing this cleanse too frequently tin start to break down your Beautyblender over time.

How to soak a Beautyblender to clean it

If you're a perfectionist and a few stains on an otherwise-clean Beautyblender will eat away at your soul, try the double-cleansing method: Soak your sponge in liquid cleanser, so follow with a gentle scrub with bar soap to remove every terminal bit of gunky remainder.

Step 1: Soak. Squirt a few drops of liquid cleanser into a small bowl with warm water and squeeze/submerge your dirty sponge into the soapy solution. Let it soak for 5 minutes.
Step 2: Scrub. Work your sponge into the lather bar to really break downwardly your stains and build-up. Once you have a lather going, use your fingers to massage the soap deeper into the sponge.
Step 3: Rinse. Once the sponge starts oozing old makeup, run it nether make clean h2o to rinse. Give it a couple of squeezes to wash out all the soap. Set aside to dry out.

How to microwave a Beautyblender to clean it

If you'd rather risk a bad breakout than spend all that fourth dimension scrubbing and soaking your sponges, allow me introduce you to the microwave method. A quick zap is all it takes to sanitize your makeup sponge. "Microwaving the sponge in soapy water is essentially like a supercharged version of putting it in your washing machine, which uses hot water and lather to cleanse fabrics," says dermatologist Joshua Zeichner, MD. "The microwave free energy will also probable impale any microorganisms that may be growing on the sponge ."

Just wait! Don't but place your dirty sponge on the microwave tray and printing starting time, or y'all'll stop upward with a melted mess. Instead, follow the below steps for a sponge like new.

Stride i: Make a soapy water mixture. First, mix a few squirts of a mild soap (dish soap or baby shampoo volition piece of work) with water in a microwave-rubber cup. You can eyeball it when it comes to measurements—simply make sure at that place's enough soapy solution to embrace the sponge fully.
Step 2: Wet the sponge. Give the sponge a few squeezes in the water to pre-moisture it, then fully submerge it in the cup.
Footstep 3: Microwave it. Microwave the cup for virtually a minute, waiting at least 30 seconds for the loving cup to cool earlier grabbing it from the microwave. The soapy water will take transformed into liquid makeup residue, and your gross sponge will expect just similar new.
Step 4: Wring it out. Once the water cools, rinse and wring out the sponge under running water, then fix it aside to dry.

Chloe Metzger Deputy Dazzler Director Chloe Metzger is the deputy beauty managing director at Cosmopolitan, overseeing the editorial content and growth strategy of the pilus, makeup, and skin space on digital, while also obsessively writing about the all-time pilus products for every hair type (curly daughter here; whattup), and the skincare routines that really, truly work (follow her on Instagram to encounter backside-the-scenes pics of that magazine life).

Ruby Buddemeyer Ruby was the beauty editor at Cosmopolitan, where she covered dazzler across print and digital.