We Tested a Device That Power-Washes Your Makeup Sponge

• We tested out the StylPro Squeeze makeup sponge cleaner.
• It’s a device that gets all the gunk out of your makeup sponges in one minute.
• It takes a bit more than a minute, but the StylPro Squeeze is a quick and easy way to clean sponges.

Following is a transript of the video.

Nico Reyes: Today, I’m going to be testing out the StylPro Squeeze makeup sponge cleaner. Now, I’ve tried a million products that are meant for cleaning makeup brushes, but I’ve never tried one specifically for cleaning makeup sponges, so this is pretty exciting. You basically place the sponge into the bowl with sponge cleaner and boiling water and then use this piece to squish all the gunk out of it. And then the best part, after you squeeze all of the dirty water out of it, you attach the spinning device, and it spins it dry so you can use it immediately. And that entire process will supposedly only take a minute. So just 60 seconds to get your sponge squeaky clean. And I like the sound of that.

So, I have here my two current makeup sponges. They are both completely filthy. I haven’t cleaned them in about two to three weeks. Don’t shame me. I’m already ashamed of myself. But I figured we can do one untimed, just so I get a feel of the product and how to use it, and then the next one, we time it.

OK, I have my dirty sponge, and the first step is going to be to dampen it and then soak it in the sponge cleaner that came with the kit. The instructions say to put 20 milliliters, so I’m just gonna eyeball that. I don’t really know how much that is, but I assume it’s enough to, like, fill the bottom area. Like, maybe that much? So I’m just going to squish it, I guess. It’s kind of hard to do because the sponge is obviously really slippery right now, and it doesn’t want to be pressed.

Next step is to fill the bowl up to this line with recently boiled water, which I have right here. It’s really, really hot. I don’t know why I put it in this cup. Now I’m going to fully extend the press by pressing this button and pulling it up. Ooh! There we go. I’m going to use the open press to massage the makeup sponge again against the bottom of the bowl. It’s looking really good right now. It says to let the makeup sponge sit in this for about 60 seconds, so let’s wait. And now I’m going to press the button again and close the press, and it’s going to squeeze all of this nasty water out of it.

All right, now the part that I’m the most scared for. We’re going to attach the spinning device to our press and basically spin this dry. I’m terrified that it’s going to splash the dirty water everywhere and get on me, but hopefully we’ll be OK! Ooh! Oh, it’s not … OK, it’s not terrible. It’s not terrible. It’s not — [laughs] OK, it’s the moment of truth. Let’s unlock our press and see how the sponge is looking. Oh, God, this thing is hard to maneuver with one hand.

Ah! There she is! She looks really clean. I think this is looking pretty good. I still see a little bit of the dirty water. I think that if I would’ve taken the sponge out and changed its position and then done the spinny thing one more time that that would’ve helped, but I have to say, this looks like a pretty-close-to-brand-new sponge, so I’m happy with that. I think because I still see some of the gunky water in my sponge, I’m going to repeat the process one more time. The instructions do say that depending on the last time you cleaned your sponge, you may have to repeat the process a few times, so let’s see if that helps at all.

That second round actually made a huge difference, because I feel like it not only got out all of the nasty water, but it also got out a lot of stains that I didn’t even know were removable. Like, this looks like a brand-new sponge that I just opened. I could definitely tell by how the water was looking that there was still some gunk stuck in here that needed to be taken out. So, I think it looks really good.

Now I’m on to my second sponge, and we will be timing this to see if that one-minute claim is actually true. It’s kind of weird because they say it’ll only take a minute to clean your sponge, but then in the instructions, it says to leave it soaking in the liquid for a minute. I’m just going to skip that step this time around and see if it actually does get clean in a minute. And that was a minute. I feel like I had barely enough time to do anything. I don’t think it got clean enough, but let’s see what it looks like. And it’s still dirty. Not shocking at all. I feel like you can still see a lot of the leftover makeup. It’s still soaking wet, and it’s stained pretty badly. So I’m going to do this the right way one more time.

This second round of cleaning definitely wasn’t as successful as it was with the first sponge. I feel like I still see some staining. The bottom of the sponge still looks pretty brown to me. So I feel like because my first round was pretty bad, this didn’t really have enough time to get fully clean.

I think the StylePro Squeeze actually exceeded my expectations a little bit. Not only did it get my sponges really clean, especially the first one, but it’s also really simple to figure out once you do it one time. Even though it takes a little more than a minute, it’s still a fast process. I do think this product gets more of the nasty stuff out of your sponges with less effort than if you clean them by hand. Even though I can see this as more of a useful product for, like, a makeup artist who probably goes through a lot of sponges, it still worked great, and I can definitely see myself using it again.