Make-Up Wipes Don’t Remove the Ugly
I love make-up. It’s fun and it makes me feel good. What I don’t love is taking it off at the end of the day. Regardless of how little I’m wearing, it always feels like too much when that time of night comes around and an immaculately white wipe or cotton ball turns brown. As someone who doesn’t really wash their face every night either, save for make-up removal, sometimes I still feel dirty when I go to bed. I also hate the amount of waste I make using make-up wipes every night and how much I felt I had to scrub using them. I used micellar water for a while but while it worked better and felt less abrasive, I was still using too many cotton balls for my liking. I wasn’t raised in a home that used disposable dinnerware regularly and that always recycled, so throwing away wipes and cotton balls day after day feels wrong.
Some time last year, my mom gave me make-up removal towels that worked well but still felt rather abrasive and had to be washed with a special soap that was rather expensive so I stopped using them and went back to my wipes and micellar water. I still felt bad, but had to worry about my finances. If I end up in the hole because I was worrying too much about the environment, I’d be even worse for the environment because I would be living directly in it.
When I started working at Ulta, I got to see many new products. One that I was always on the lookout for was new make-up remover. Something cheap but works well and maybe wouldn’t create a lot of waste. I found other micellar waters that worked well. I also found the Urban Decay make-up removers that are amazing but expensive. Both of these products would still create a bit of waste however. In the Ulta Beauty line, I knew of make-up removing towels, similar to something I’d seen some YouTubers use in the past. They are little grey towels that are super soft and supposedly remove all make-up, including waterproof mascara, and only need water to be activated. On Associate Appreciation Weekend, when we received an extra 10% discount, and the Ulta Beauty Collection was Buy 2 Get 2 Free, I decided I’d buy a set and try them out.
In order to test them, I went to work with a full face of make-up on and then used one of these wipes to take off the make-up on one half of my face and used a traditional make-up remover wipe to remove the make-up on the other half of my face. I was surprised by how much I liked these and how well they worked.
I used the towel first and it felt that I mostly removed the make-up I had on that day. I was satisfied. Then I used the wipe on the other side and both sides of my face felt about the same. They both removed my eyeliner and mascara, some of the most difficult make-up to remove, and neither felt super roughed up though the wipe side did feel a bit more raw, especially around the eye.
After removing everything that I felt I could with the towel and the wipe, I took a cotton ball with micellar water to both cheeks to see how much make-up was leftover. This showed results as expected.
Leftover make-up after using a wipe.
Leftover make-up after using the towel.
There was more make-up left after using a towel than a wipe. I figured this was because the wipe has make-up remover in it while the towel is just using water and its fibers to remove all of the gunk on my face. Regardless, I think that the towels are a good replacement for wipes because they are less abrasive and less wasteful. If you use them however, you should definitely wash your face afterwards, though you should be doing that anyways.
