This week: The Beauty Blender Vs. Sonia Kashuk’s Blending Sponge. Both blending sponges are the most popular and well known sponges on the market to help apply and blend your makeup. Beauty Blender is found only at their website, Sephora, or high-end retailers, whereas Sonia Kashuk’s Blending Sponge is an option available at your local Target. Do these blending sponges do what they claim? Grab a seat, and let the showdown begin…
- The Beauty Blender is a pink, egg shaped blending sponge that is uniform around it’s spherical shape. The sponge is very soft, squeezable, and pliable. The Beauty Blender is roughly the same size as a real egg, and it’s egg shape allows you to blend makeup around the curves of your face, such as the nose, chin, and lips.
- The Sonia Kashuk Blending Sponge is a purple (or blue) blending sponge that is also shaped like an egg, but is slightly smaller than the Beauty Blender. The Sonia Kashuk version has a grooved midsection to allow for an easier grip and application. The Sonia Kashuk version is also firmer than the Beauty Blender is when squeezed, making it more ideal for stippling on makeup.
The Sonia Kashuk Blending Sponge has a firmer, smaller, sleeker design to it. It also has a grooved midsection for an easy grip, which we love. Overall, holding and using the Sonia Kashuk Blending Sponge is more appealing to us than the Beauty Blender.
- Beauty Blender retails for $19.95 for one sponge, or $25.95 for two at Sephora or at the Beauty Blender website.
- Sonia Kashuk Blending Sponge retails for $9.99 for one sponge at Target.
The Sonia Kashuk Blending Sponge retails for half of the price of a Beauty Blender, and is easily available for purchase at Target’s nationwide.
The Sonia Kashuk Blending Sponge feels better in our hand in terms of size, in our opinion. It is slightly smaller than the Beauty Blender, and it also has the grooved midsection so you will not lose your grip on your blending sponge. We also love the fact that the Sonia Kashuk Blending Sponge is firmer to the touch, allowing us to apply our makeup much cleaner. With the Beauty Blender, we felt like our makeup absorbed right into the product, rather than sitting on the outside of the product, and ending up on our face, like with the Sonia Kashuk Blending Sponge. You can see even in our photographs below, that the usually pink Beauty Blender has absorbed far more foundation than the Sonia Kashuk Blending Sponge, even though we’ve used and abused them the same amount.
The Beauty Blender is much softer and much more squeezable, but this feels like a downside to the product instead of a positive. It feels like the product absorbs our foundation instead of applying and blending it. It also makes this product less ideal than the Sonia Kashuk version for building coverage with your foundation since it’s so soft and pliable. The softness also makes us have to spend more time around the curves of our face, especially our nose, ensuring that we do not have streaky or caked on foundation that is improperly blended. The Sonia Kashuk version does a fabulous job of standing up to any foundation, temporarily “holding” it, rather than absorbing it. We also felt more confident going around our nose and mouth with it because it was firmer, and therefore applied more flawlessly with less blending needed.
In our opinion, we preferred the Sonia Kashuk Blending Sponge over the Beauty Blender. We often wet our Sonia Kashuk Blending Sponge, squeeze out the excess water, and apply our foundation with it slightly damp. This makes for a flawless, airbrushed finish.
- Beauty Blender can be purchased at your local Sephora, or by clicking the link below:
- Sonia Kashuk Blending Sponge can be purchased at your local Target, or by clicking the link below:
Which of these two blending sponges do you feel wins the Showdown Throwdown ultimately? Share your thoughts with Beauty Gala!
Feel free to use the contact form, or leave a comment below.
[Products were purchased with my own money.]
[ALL PHOTOGRAPHY ON THIS SITE IS TAKEN BY REBECCA KAZIMIR. NO PHOTOGRAPHS ARE TO BE REPRODUCED WITHOUT WRITTEN PERMISSION.]
consumer2010 says
You forgot to mention beautyblender is the original makeup applicator and not a knock off.
Rebecca says
Consumer2010: While the Beauty Blender did come first on the market, as a consumer, we much preferred the Sonia Kashuk Blending Sponge over the Beauty Blender, and stick by our opinion that it not only blends more effectively, but does so for much cheaper. Thank you for reading our article!
Lachelle says
This morning I was just thinking that I need a better way to apply my liquid foundation! This looks like the answer!
Rebecca says
You will love it Lachelle! I like my foundation to look somewhat dewy, and not caked on. The Sonia Kashuk Blending Sponge is my go-to tool. I just wet it, squeeze out the excess water so it’s damp, put a little foundation on the back of my hand, then dip and blend. It’s so quick, and it makes your foundation look airbrushed!
claudette says
I just tried the Sonia Kashuk’s beauty sponge and love it. I used a less expensive foundation and my face looked airbrushed. If I can find a cheaper brand of cosmetic and can get the same benefits as a high end one, I’m all for it. I’m going to buy a couple more just in case the price increases!
Rebecca says
I am so glad you had amazing results Claudette! And, we agree completely about saving money!
Amy says
Confused. I’m using the SK but the BB is getting better reviews. They are both meant to be used wet. Your review didn’t mention wetting them first. Just said you often wet your SK’s and use them damp. Did you wet the BB??? I can NOT get the stains out of my SK and I notice yours is gross. The BB preferrers are stating that the BB is much easier to clean and longer lasting. I think you need to add ease of cleaning into your review.
Rebecca says
Hi Amy – Both of my sponges are equally dirty in the review, but I would actually say my BB looks more “gross” than my SK sponge. It tends to hold on to product more when I use it (as stated in the review), so it absorbs all the foundation and makeup it touches. When I go to clean my BB, it also absorbs the water too much without really getting it clean. I feel the SK is much less porous than the BB is, and I prefer it much more, both working with it, and cleaning it. You can use the BB and SK either wet *or* dry, there really are no rules.
Katie says
I have been using the SK blending sponge for a few months now and I LOVE it! I have very fair skin with lots of redness and this sponge puts on the perfect amount of foundation without getting too heavy. My makeup looks airbrushed. I always wet it but squeeze it out in a towel so it’s just barely damp. I use it for concealer and Benefit High Beam too. I even use it to press my powder into my foundation sometimes for a long lasting finish. Saves a lot of room in brushes on the go.
Love everything about this sponge so far!! It does stain, but as long as you wash the oils out often enough it doesn’t effect the performance of the sponge at all. I guess the look of the dirty sponge might bother some people, but I don’t care. I keep it in a frosted glass between uses to keep it out of sight and let it dry. Definitely worth the $10 or so at Target, I would recommend this to anyone who uses liquid foundation!
BeautyGala says
Katie — thank you SO much for your helpful comment and your tips. They are awesome!
beaty blender says
What a fantastic post! This information is important and valuable. I read a lot of blog posts, but yours is one of the few that offers such high-quality content. These articles are excellent. The information in the post is quite useful. Profusion Cosmetics is a subject of my blog. You are more than welcome to visit my website.
proluxcosmetic[dot]c(o)m