Oral history of how beauticians invented the makeup sponge as we know it
In This series, we’ll take a look at the historical development of how iconic beauty products came to be and became so popular that they have become a cultural break in their own right.
Look into any makeup bag, and you’ll almost certainly find a candy-colored, egg-shaped makeup sponge. Beautician (and their countless imitations) are so common, it’s easy to forget what makeup sponges were like before Beautyblender entered our lives in 2003. “I thought, ‘Someone needs to be. modernize these tools’,” says makeup brand founder Rea Ann Silva, artist. The traditional (and popular at the time) makeup sponge had two main attributes: inexpensive and disposable. “It was never really designed to put makeup on your face and make it look perfect, and make it look natural,” Silva recalls. So back in her early years, she cut some corners – literally – while working on the set of the TV show Girlfriendand an iconic game-changing beautifier was born.
But let’s rewind a bit, shall we? Interestingly, Silva didn’t even start out in the beauty world. A native of Los Angeles, she was a fashion student at the Fashion Institute of Design and Business (FIDM), but needed a part-time job to support herself. Enter: makeup. “I ended up faking it until I did it as a makeup artist on a retail floor of a department store for Chanel,” she speaks.
But this was Hollywood anyway, and soon she was stepping out of the Chanel counter to get on with life. “I feel very fortunate that all of this happened during the MTV revolution,” Silva said. She took advantage of every opportunity that came her way, doing makeup for the song “California Love” by Tupac and Dr. Dre as well as other music videos. Unrelated work helped build her portfolio, but ultimately didn’t provide the stability she needed as a working single mom.
TVs, on the other hand, are much more reliable. Silva is sought after for one particular skill: airbrushing, which has gone from being used for special effects to beauty makeup. She got a job on the sitcom Girlfriend, broke the barrier in many ways. Silva explained: “The show will be the first shot and will be broadcast in high definition. “The girls are four beautiful young African-American women, and Lindy Segal Mara [Akil Brock] and the producers on the show just really want them to look natural, not want them to look overly made up. “
But keeping makeup looking more natural and consistent also presents challenges. The shots were out of sequence and the airbrushing tool was too big to use for on-set edits. “I needed to find a way to make the airbrush applications look consistent throughout the day without using an airbrush,” says Silva. Finally, a lightbulb moment came with the help of makeup artist Kelcey Fry, who shared in a class that she would wet her sponge using modern makeup for close-ups. scene. “I think, that’s my challenge with high definition, everything is like a close-up.” It’s working fine, except for the triangular wedges we’ll be using, those sharp edges will leave fine lines as you thin the makeup. So Silva created a do-it-yourself solution: “I started cutting the sponge and polishing the edges, and ended up just creating a teardrop shape and that’s really how it works. Beautyblender born. “
Before Silva even thought about producing her work for consumers, she was excited to share Beautyblender with her industry colleagues. “My first thought was that digital is the future and high-definition is not going away,” she recalls. But she quickly realized the tool had broader appeal. “The blenders would sprout and disappear at the end of each day, because the actors gave them to their sisters, their friends, their aunts, their mothers…”
But actually getting stuff made for the masses has proven, in Silva’s words, “a sensitive act,” not only because she’s still a working makeup artist, but also because the product itself is difficult to manufacture. “Nobody ever thought of this stuff, that’s why it’s a cataloger,” she explains. “And soft sponges like Beautyblender are never cut into round, non-sharp shapes.”
About three years after she cut her first sponge, Beautyblender is finally hitting shelves, though the brand’s first mass retailer isn’t what you’d expect. She wrote to Women wear everyday, attracting the attention of buyers at Victoria’s Secret, who originally loved the bright pink color of the tool. (The partnership was short-lived, however, as VS soon brought their beauty business in-house.) But the biggest coup happened yet. Sephora. “As a makeup artist, I just think ‘Oh my gosh, what would that be? What if one day I pass by and see my product in this window?'” Of course, not just Beautyblender is now actually in Sephora; Large retailers also have exclusive rights to sell color cosmetics of the brand.
Skincare products are an “indisputable” thing when it comes to brand extensions, says Silva. “I went out with establish as it is the perfect product to use with Beautyblender. Like hot dogs now have a hot dog sandwich, she said. And different nuances are important to Silva, who is a member of the Latinx community and has made independence a signature part of her brand from the very beginning. “I’ve been mixing lipsticks and eyeshadows and all sorts of unique things into my foundation to create shades that weren’t there before, I don’t know, four years ago,” she says.
Today, there are more sizes, colors and different iterations of Beautyblender than ever before. This invention is so iconic it’s earned Silva a place as one of eight women was featured in the exhibition “The Only Person in the Room: Successful Women in Business and the Cost of Success” at the Smithsonian National Museum. “[My publicist] like, ‘Oh yeah, we got this call from the Smithsonian.’ I’m like ‘Smithsonian?’ I totally think they got the wrong person.” Every makeup bag in the US will be different.
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