Dior Backstage Blender Review

This has been one of the most talked about makeup tools of the year so far. 

Dior Backstage Blender. £12. 

I wanted this immediately. It's been all over my Instagram feed and I was super excited to get hold of one. It's black, it's a beauty blender, and it's Dior. What's not to like? 

So the other day, I purchased this in Debenhams using my beauty card points, meaning it was also free! 

I love Beauty Blenders. The original beauty blender is easily one of my best beauty buys ever. 

Before the Beauty Blender, I'd used the Real Techniques version, at £6 it's a bargain but I didn't like it, and felt it was a big dissapointment. But the actual branded Beauty Blender, at £16 is priceless. I use it daily.  I find applying my base with brushes works best for me and then the Beauty Blender just refreshes everything, blends in for an airbrush finish and removes any 'cakey' affect of my makeup. It stops my concealer pooling around my eyes, it takes makeup out of flaky patches, it cleans up any smudging of eye makeup, it removes oily residue from foundation, all in all it just does everything to finish off my look.

So to find a Dior version was very exciting. 

Unfortunately, the excitement was short lived. 

I've tried this several times now, just to be sure before I reviewed it. 

It's just not the same. When you dampen a Beauty Blender, it expands as the pores take in the moisture. This means that it doesn't absorb the liquid foundation. 

Dampening the Dior blender doesn't do anything. It stays the same size. 

The Dior blender is much firmer. It's quite solid for a sponge. 

Applying makeup is another dissapointment. The Beauty Blender almost 'bounces' as you use it. It's very soft and flexible, wheras the Dior is quite hard and doesn't really change in shape. It doesn't blend well at all, and gives nowhere near the same finish. 

To be honest, I don't think it should be called a 'blender'. It's more of a standard makeup sponge, which I don't actually like using as they seem a bit redundant and tend to just smear product around. 

I guess one resounding factor is that the Dior blender is so firm that it's very durable. The Beauty Blender has to be cleaned very carefully to avoid tearing and the Real Techniques copy just seemed to fall apart straight away. 

I'm not a fan of the Dior blender. I feel like my expectations of a Dior product would be that it worked much better than another version? But it doesn't stand up to the original whatsoever. I don't like it  but would love to hear if anyone else has found it to be a less dissapointing product. 

Kirstie 

Xxxxx