There isn’t much to say about the Beautyblender other than it’s an excellent product produced by people with extremely good business sense. Sponges have fueled makeup application for decades and always been a hair or two short of providing a stunning skin finish without soaking up too much of your beloved (probably pricey) product. And then Beautyblender comes along with a proprietary, egg-shaped squish and topples the entire market on its head. Not that there was a huge market to begin with—was I the only one stealing sponges from each Sephora visit and smuggling them away in my pockets? But now that Beautyblender is the success story of the industry, I’ve heard brands are trying left and right to patent their own version of the sponge. To no avail, apparently.

I’ll admit I’m a little late to the game on this one. I’ve been trying to subscribe myself to the “cool girls who just use their fingers for makeup” camp for years now, and have been getting along just fine. Until I started to notice that my concealer wasn’t as seamless with my skin as I thought. And the more I blended with my middle finger, the more product got swept away. To the point where I had to start all over again. There had to be a better way.

And there has been one. For 15 years! That’s the anniversary Beautyblender just celebrated. And now I’m fully on-board. These days, I’m applying a light veil of Maybelline’s Dream Cushion Foundation in 10, followed by a tapping of Nars’ forthcoming pot concealer in Vanille. Then, instead of going full two-year-old-with-a-paint-set on my forehead, I spray my Beautyblender with some Glossier Soothing Face Mist and start bouncing the rounded end anywhere there’s makeup (starting with the places that need less coverage and going gentler on zits). When I’m done, my skin looks plumper (that’s the bouncing) and my makeup looks airbrushed. But lest we get too far away from our "cool girl" roots, I'll also mention that now I think I actually understand the true definition of dewy thanks to the moistened sponge. Everything I could ever ask for at one time. That's the power of a good application tool.

—Emily Ferber

Photographed by Tom Newton.

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