Sponging - Dab or Smudge?

I am having a LOt of problems with sponging. Dabbing it on, seems to not cover the skin so well, so I end up smudging it like I would makeup concealer. Maybe I put too much/too little water on the sponge?
I got a spritz bottle and intend to try it tonight, but any other tips would be appreciated. How to best get the paint on sponge and then paint on skin?

you should use a light pouncing motion and you'll be going over it a few times to make it even. If you get tiny darker wet spots and blank spots, then your sponge is too wet... it should be just damp when you go to your paint.

The spritz bottle will help a LOT. Use a dry sponge and just wet the paints with the mist bottle. (A fine mist is best.) Load the sponge well - rub it back and forth across the surface of the cake.

Patting or dabbing, rubbing or smoothing... has a lot to do with what type of paint you are working with. Some need to be dabbed, others are creamier and can be rubbed. If I am doing a full face, I usually wipe the color on quickly, and then pat it to smooth it out while it's still damp.

Make sure your paints aren't too wet. This will make it harder to get an even solid coverage. I like to spray the sponge & then go to the paints. The paint dries quicker on the face so your linework will look better.
I practiced & practiced forever on my inner arm till I learned the right consistency for each brand of paint.

Thanks for advices. I am currently using Snazaroo paint, and using the spongest that came with it (tiny and thin). So the sponges themselves are a bit of a challenge.
I tried rub then dab (rubba-dab-dab?) and that was much better this time. I got a better color on my son's tiger.

You'll need better sponges - those ones in the small Snaz kits are useless. No idea why they even bother to include them. It would make so much more sense to include a proper sponge.

I agree. I think those sponges actually doing their product an injustice, to be honest.

I did order some real sponges (yellow, hig-density), so /crosses fingers.

Oh yeah, you'll be amazed at the difference the better sponges will make. Snaz is great for sponging so you're on the right track.

I find the sponge with the snaz kit is too small for anything. I do like them for sponging on small children. I also use them for small detailed areas & for sponging on the white for tigers.

I've decided that using mops works great with my little snaz pallate. I'm basically just trying to use those paints up. One of these days I'm just going to dump them out and make a few rainbow cakes with the remainders of my useless .2mL pots. And forget about using those sponges they come with. They are stupid.

Yay, I got my new sponges (the yellow, round) and they do work SO much better! Now to learn the water balance....