Can You Wash And Reuse Makeup Sponges

Mmmkay, listen up: You need to clean your Beautyblender and makeup sponges way, style more ofttimes than you currently exercise (which I'm guessing is, um, once or twice a year max?). Seriously—take information technology from me, someone who genuinely hates cleaning my makeup brushes, when I say that actually taking 5 minutes to simply do the damn thing is significantly meliorate than letting your Beautyblender or makeup sponge go along to sit and fester with built-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 fleck, if it will actually get you to clean your sponges), it's merely facts. Fifty-fifty if your Beautyblender or sponge is "antimicrobial," that doesn't mean it magically stays make clean—antimicrobial properties but make the sponge a less hospitable environment for bacteria to grow. Simply that doesn't do anything to help the build-upwards that tin lead to breakouts, irritation, and inflammation. Which brings u.s. to...

How often should you clean a Beautyblender?

In a perfect world? After each use. Only since that'll never happen, most experts agree that you should make clean your Beautyblender or makeup sponge at least once a calendar week . "Ideally, you'd wash all of your makeup tools every unmarried day, just I know this is unrealistic," dermatologist Geeta Yadav, MD, founder of Peel Scientific discipline Dermatology, has told Cosmo. So instead, stick to cleaning your Beautyblender weekly. "Make it a Lord's day-nighttime activity and so that you lot can start your week off fresh," she added.

Luckily, washing your makeup sponge really isn't that fourth dimension-consuming. It'south 2021, baby, and there are a trillion makeup castor cleaners and tried-and-tested YouTube tutorials to guide yous through the procedure, whether you're working with a cleansing pad, your paw, or just some dish lather. Keep reading, and please wash your sponges this evening, grand?

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How to clean a BeautyBlender with a pad

The key to cleaning a makeup sponge? Using enough friction that you really clean it—but non so much that you impairment it (lilliputian sponges are delicate, y'all). That's why I love using a texturized silicone pad—it gives me a gentle but effective surface to deep-clean my Beautyblender without vehement or snagging it. Near makeup brush mitts volition practise the fox, just my personal faves are Beautyblender'due south Keep It Make clean (it slips over your hand, so it's five convenient) and Sephora Drove'south Solid Brush and Sponge Cleaner Mini (information technology comes with a bar of soap). Hither's what you do:

Step 1: Moisture your sponge. Gently clasp your sponge under running water until it's totally wet.
Step 2: Add together some soap. Squeeze a cleansing liquid or rub a bar of lather along the paw so information technology'southward fully saturated (I prefer a basic, unscented soap like Dr. Bronner's Pure-Castile Baby Soap).
Footstep three: Scrub and rinse. Run your sponge along the silicone nibs until your makeup stains are gone—no wringing or pulling—and then rinse until the h2o runs articulate.
Step iv: Dry. Fix your sponge bated and let it air-dry with enough of circulation (psst: drying your makeup sponge in a airtight space can actually lead to mildew).

How to clean a Beautyblender with soap

Listen, soap isn't the gentlest selection on this listing, just it's definitely the strongest and virtually constructive—and, you know, sometimes very, very needed, depending on your sponge's level of dirty. Whether you adopt to utilize a liquid cleanser or a bar of soap is upwards to you lot, simply both methods will give you lot the aforementioned squeaky-make clean result. Here's how:

Step one: Wet your sponge. Squeeze your makeup sponge under running water until it'due south completely saturated and expanded.
Step ii: Add together the cleanser. If you're using a liquid cleanser, squirt the lather directly onto the wet sponge and begin massaging, pressing, and pushing information technology into the palm of your wet hand to work the lather into the center of the sponge. If you're using bar soap, rub the sponge dorsum and forth against the bar while applying pressure to build up a lather.
Step 3: Rinse. Squeeze the sponge underneath clean water until the h2o runs articulate, then squeeze the sponge and gear up it bated to dry.

Just be careful: Soap can be harsh and drying, so doing this cleanse too frequently can start to break downward 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 volition eat away at your soul, try the double-cleansing method: Soak your sponge in liquid cleanser, then follow with a gentle scrub with bar soap to remove every concluding bit of gunky residue.

Step i: Soak. Eject a few drops of liquid cleanser into a small bowl with warm water and clasp/submerge your muddied sponge into the soapy solution. Allow it soak for 5 minutes.
Pace 2: Scrub. Work your sponge into the soap bar to actually break down your stains and build-up. One time you accept a soap going, use your fingers to massage the soap deeper into the sponge.
Step iii: Rinse. One time the sponge starts oozing erstwhile makeup, run it under clean water to rinse. Give it a couple of squeezes to launder out all the soap. Gear up aside to dry.

How to microwave a Beautyblender to make clean it

If you'd rather risk a bad breakout than spend all that time scrubbing and soaking your sponges, let me introduce you to the microwave method. A quick zap is all it takes to sanitize your makeup sponge. "Microwaving the sponge in soapy h2o is essentially similar a supercharged version of putting information technology in your washing automobile, which uses hot water and soap to cleanse fabrics," says dermatologist Joshua Zeichner, MD. "The microwave energy volition also probable kill whatsoever microorganisms that may be growing on the sponge ."

Just await! Don't just place your muddied sponge on the microwave tray and press get-go, or you'll end up with a melted mess. Instead, follow the below steps for a sponge similar new.

Stride 1: Make a soapy water mixture. Commencement, mix a few squirts of a balmy soap (dish soap or baby shampoo will work) with water in a microwave-condom loving cup. You can eyeball it when it comes to measurements—but make certain there's enough soapy solution to embrace the sponge fully.
Step two: Wet the sponge. Give the sponge a few squeezes in the water to pre-wet information technology, and so fully submerge it in the cup.
Pace 3: Microwave information technology. Microwave the cup for nearly a infinitesimal, waiting at least thirty seconds for the cup to absurd before grabbing information technology from the microwave. The soapy water volition have transformed into liquid makeup residue, and your gross sponge will look but like new.
Step 4: Wring it out. Once the water cools, rinse and wring out the sponge under running water, and then ready it aside to dry.

Chloe Metzger Deputy Beauty Managing director Chloe Metzger is the deputy beauty director at Cosmopolitan, overseeing the editorial content and growth strategy of the pilus, makeup, and skin space on digital, while likewise obsessively writing about the all-time pilus products for every hair type (curly girl here; whattup), and the skincare routines that actually, truly work (follow her on Instagram to see behind-the-scenes pics of that magazine life).

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