Forever 21 Love & Beauty came out with makeup sponges last year. They were in lot of interesting shapes, including the famous teardrop shape made so popular by Beauty Blender. I wasn't able to find the teardrop one at my Forever21, but eventually it was stocked. I've used 3 Love & Beauty makeup sponges from Forever 21 and all of them are quite different from each other...and 2 of them are sort of similar to the original Beauty Blender.
Yellow Sponge [contoured]:
This is the first one I tried. It literally rejects water. A couple of soak-ins made it get used to absorbing water. even after that, its size does not increase. Maybe it is made to be used dry, however, it soaks in a lot of product that way rather than blending anything. When used wet, the results are better, it does blend out foundation. It is easy to use under eyes too.
Like the Beauty Blender, it
This one is similar to the Beauty Blender in the sense that it absorbs water easily, expands in size and is light weight. However, when it this one is wet, it gets out of shape easily and ends up staying that way even after drying (this does not happen with Beauty Blender). I had to be extremely careful while using it so that it does not get out of shape, but eventually, that also happened. Imagine trying to squeeze water out of sponge without ruining its shape. This was a pain to use. A sponge should be able to bounce back into shape, no ? It also took way to long to dry up.
absorbs water easily and grows nearly double in size and does not get out of shape. This one is most similar to the Beauty Blender. It dries up faster too. Shape-wise, its larger from the bottom than Beauty Blender. Its easy to blend foundation with this sponge, but because of its wider bottom, I found it hard to reach my inner corners even with the pointed end of the sponge. I do not have this problem when I use the Beauty Blender. Also, it is heavy compared to any of the sponges. It feels like you are dabbing something heavy onto your face. This sponge is also very hard to squeeze. If you've used the BB, one of the best things about it is how easy it is to squeeze and manipulate.
I think this is the final version of their sponges. The previous two might no longer be made. In terms of makeup application, this is very similar to the original Beauty Blender. It blends out foundation providing sheer coverage and eats up quite a bit of product, but it also makes your makeup look nice and not cakey. As it is hard to squeeze, its not of much use for highlighting & contouring. A strange thing about it is that it feels like the rubbery Nars packaging !
sponge when wet, with water squeezed out
sponge when wet with water squeezed out
I believe that the Forever 21 black sponge one is the final version of their sponges, not in terms of color/shape but in terms of type. I liked using it, although it is not a dupe of the Beauty Blender, its a good place to start if you're thinking about trying out makeup sponges, and the price doesn't pinch ! I did enjoy using their initial version too, although it rejected water.
