It's a well-known fact that Beautyblenders are the holy grails of makeup sponges, but some people have been shocked to find that their teardrop-shaped makeup applicators aren't as clean as they think.
It cannot be stressed enough how important it is to regularly clean makeup brushes and sponges, because you do not want to be putting dirt and germs on your face. Since the Beautyblenders contain so much unseen material, some beauty addicts became curious about what was going on inside the sponges and decided to cut them in half and find out once and for all.
It all started when Reddit user Mimi started the subreddit called r/makeupaddiction, which now features several posts and photos of Beautyblenders or another brand's similar version cut in half. Users like beauty_blend were shocked to find super-old makeup inside their sponges, even though they thought they were fully cleaning them.
Beauty_blend explained that right before she was about to get rid of an old RT sponge, which is a similar brand to the Beautyblender, she cleaned it as she always would and cut it in half out of curiosity. "I remember a reddit post from about a year ago. Someone cut in half their used beauty blender and it was pretty much pristine inside," the user wrote. "People were showing pictures of their RT sponge's insides too and everyone was happy that nothing dramatic happened and we are safe. It looks like most of you are, but I am certainly going wrong somewhere. My RT sponge was packed with foundation."
The user went on to ask where she was going wrong. "Is it the foundation (Revlon Colorstay)? Is it how I wash it?" she wrote. "Perhaps it is down to how I apply it? I didn't see any negative effects on my face after using what looks like a really gross sponge, but I am really not feeling it anymore. It cannot be unseen! Where am I going wrong?"
Since the user pointed out that she uses mild shampoo to wash it, several users explained that she should be using a specific sponge cleanser, which brands like Beautyblender and MAC make. This seemed to be exactly where she was going wrong as those who use these cleansing products found that their sponges were perfectly clean inside when they cut them open.
"Today while desperately trying to get the last bit of foundation out of my Beautyblender, I accidentally ripped a hole in it. I've always been curious how clean the inside of the sponge could actually get," another user, who cleans her sponge properly, wrote. "For some reason I always thought it would be dirty in the middle, or even worse moldy! I decided now was the time to satisfy my curiosity and took a pair of scissors to the lil guy. The results surprised me! Besides the two spots I couldn't seem to get clean, it was spotless! So, now you know!"
Possibly the most disgusting post of them all, though, came from blogger Amber who wrote a lengthy post about her Beautyblender "pooping." Amber even uses the Beautyblender cleanser to wash her sponge, so this came as quite a shock to all the beauty lovers on the thread.
"I kept noticing that [the sponges] were getting hard/dense at the butt/round part/bottom of the blender," she wrote. "So one day I thought I wold do a deep clean to my Beauty Blenders. So I washed it, rung it out and did it all over again. I noticed that the water would never truly run clear. Then out of nowhere as I was squeezing the water out BAM! The bottom split open and particles/poop began to come out. I was not a happy Beauty lender owner...It saddened me. It also made me think about how much bacteria and what not could be living inside my Beauty Blender."
