powder puff

plural powder puffs · alternative powder-puff

1. A ball or pad of soft material used for the application of cosmetic powder to the face.

   Both the lipstick and the rouge are waterproof and frictionproof. They won't come off on your handkerchief or powder puff.

   1925, Cosmopolitan, volume 78, page 194

   1 more example

   The little bag, with its shiny, silvery jaws open, lay on her lap. He could see her powder-puff, her rouge stick, a bundle of letters, a phial of tiny black pills like seeds, a broken cigarette, a mirror, white ivory tablets with lists on them that had been heavily scored through. He thought: “In Egypt she would be buried with those things.”

   1920, Katherine Mansfield [pseudonym; Kathleen Mansfield Murry], “The Escape”, in Bliss and Other Stories, London: Constable & Company, published 1920, →OCLC, page 273

2. Any of certain species of genus Calliandra.

alternative powder-puff

1. alternativenot comparableAlternative form of powderpuff.