By stufflovely
Although makeup sponges spend a short time in makeup bags (three months, to be exact, if you ask Beverly Hills-based board-certified dermatologist Ava Shamban, they live on for decades in landfills. According to EcoTools, the beauty tool can take more than 50 years to breakdown, accumulating tons of waste from the tiny object. In hopes of fixing this problem, the brand recently launched the Bioblender, a 100 percent biodegradable makeup sponge.
Instead of foam like most sponges, the Bioblender is composed of five naturally derived ingredients — water, corn, preservative, pigment, and BionaNopol, the brand’s top-secret ingredient. It won’t shrink or break apart when it’s chilling in your makeup bag, on your dresser, or in a drawer. Instead, it knows what it needs to do once it’s tossed.
“It won’t start biodegrading until it’s in an environment that invites it to start biodegrading, meaning the sponge will keep acting like a sponge until you dispose of it,” explains Kristen Chase, senior vice president of global marketing at PPI Beauty, which is EcoTool’s parent company.
Throwing out the Bioblender doesn’t have to be a huge ordeal, either. Just chuck it into a trash can or compost it — that’s it. Regardless of where the sponge ends up, it will still decompose. Once trashed, it will take about 180 days to fully break down.
But does this sustainability upgrade compromise the Bioblender’s performance? The short answer is absolutely not, but let’s dive a bit deeper than that.
Each firm purple-colored sponge has the standard EcoTools shape — flat-topped with two angled sides and a rounded bottom. Like most makeup sponges, it works best when damp and blends out concealer flawlessly. I tested the Bioblender out with my go-to Too Faced Born This Way Super Coverage Concealer on my undereye area, forehead, chin, and down the bridge of my nose.