Sofina Kao Sponge Cleaner review

Sofina is owned by the "Kao Corporation" in Japan. While they mostly have the pretty packaged Sofina Beaute or Sofina Aube Couture lines, Kao also sells some Sofina branded random items in drugstores.

This is the "Sponge Cleaner" from Sofina. It's in a 50ml fliptop bottle. The content is a clearish liquid gel, very faint scent that smells like generic face wash.

(It did come in a plastic sealed packaging but I threw that out ages ago)



This is meant to be a special cleaner for your sponges and powder puffs. I'm kind of a hygiene freak when it comes to sponges and powder puffs because ultimately, this is how all the makeup goes to your face.

For sponges I tend to use disposable ones (I buy those round sponges, cut them into 4-6 pieces, each day I use 1 new side and throw it out after day 2 (after both sides are used).

However for powder puffs that goes with pressed powders or powder foundations, they cannot be replaced as often (because sometimes they cost like $5 each especially the nice ones). This is where sponge cleaners become handy.

Here's my powder puff (Laneige one that comes with the Laneige foundations, it's interesting because it's a bit velvet like, and can actually apply a good fine layer of powder foundation). After 2 uses they tend to have either my powder resiue or a bit of foundation on it:

 I don't really understand the Japanese instruction on the back of the bottle, but usually I squeeze a drop like this, and wet the sponge and just massage it until a bit of bubble comes out, and the sponge quickly will go clean:

After rinsing out all the residue or bubbles, my powder puff is good as new! (It's naturally a bit yellow tinted because other than the velvet top layer, the middle bit is a thin yellow sponge layer, which makes these puffs great).

Overall 5/5. You can buy various Shiseido or Sofina sponge cleaner for like $5 or 6 on Ebay generally for a 50ml bottle or so. Very cheap, and really keeps your things clean. They are meant to be anti-bacterial too.