Loose Powder

I was asked to compare & review some of the cleansers I have used for eye makeup removal. Until recently, I haven’t used many difficult to remove items like mascara and eyeliner so my regular facial cleansers and a wash cloth seemed to work just fine.

However, once I began using eye primers (like Pixie Epoxy), mascara, and heavy eyeliner for smokey looks, I quickly discovered that the normal cleansers weren’t going to be effective. Sure, they worked — it just required a bit more scrubbing, which might be fine on other parts of your face, but around the eye? Not so much.

In this article, I’m going to talk about three products: Philosophy’s Purity Made Simple Foaming Cleanser, Philosophy’s Just Release Me Eye Makeup Remover, and Burt’s Bees Orange Essence Facial Cleanser.

You might be thinking it isn’t fair to compare one eye makeup remover against two face cleansers. Well, why not? Some people suggest using sunflower oil and that certainly isn’t a cleanser!

To start with, I picked several eye products: e.l.f. mineral eyeliner w/powdered eye shadow on top, e.l.f. waterproof eyeliner, NYC liquid eyeliner, Wet N Wild liquid liner, e.l.f. sugar kiss glitter liner, and NYC waterproof mascara.

And made four sets of lines on my arm with each product. I used Tarte Clean Slate primer underneath and let everything for about 3 hours.

My method for each product will be the same: I’ll use a q-tip with the product and some water. At the top of the test patch, I’ll use minimal pressure when rubbing on the product. Below that on the same patch, I’ll use a bit of scrubbing pressure, which you probably wouldn’t use on your eyelid. Then rinse with water and see what happens!

Now for the results!

Philosophy’s Just Release Me Eye Make Up Remover

I’ve actually just started using this product this week. Picked it up at my local Sephora. This is a dual-phase item, so you have to shake the bottle before you use it. I keep forgetting. The reason I picked this up out of everything in the store was the list of ingredients which are short and free of parabens & sulfates.

When using, I apply a dab of it to my wash cloth, pat it on my eye and give it a second before I wipe. Works well! Used a similar method with this q-tip test.

As you can see, with minimal rubbing, nearly everything is off. All that’s left is a bit of the waterproof mascara. On the bottom, I didn’t rub much harder that the top of the test patch and everything came off.

I will say that there is a slightly oily feel to the product. It doesn’t bother me because I follow up my eye makeup remover with a face wash to get my face clean and that gets rid of it without anything extra. A damp cloth should do fine if you need it.

Burt’s Bees Orange Essence Facial Cleanser

I’d picked this up at Target, hoping that it would also remove eye makeup. Burt’s Bees products are a bit touch and go for me, but it wasn’t too expensive so I thought I would give it a try. As a facial cleanser, it works fine, but for eye makeup…

As you can see, light rubbing left residue in the two eyeliners (elf mineral smudges and elf waterproof), got the three liquid liners off, but didn’t even touch the waterproof mascara. With regular mascara I can tell you it leaves a big raccoon eye mess.

It also stings a bit if you get the tiniest bit in your eye. Yes. Hello, orange oil!

Even after some scrubbing, there are still smudges and bits of mascara left. When I was using this regularly, I was washing my eyes twice just to get everything off. I definitely won’t rely on this as an eye cleanser.

Philosophy’s Purity made Simple Foaming Cleanser

This was the first facial cleanser I purchased at Sephora last year when I started on my cosmetic bender. Clearly, I haven’t used it too often as there it still a third of the bottle left. In any case, I had been using it and assuming it got all my makeup from the day off, so while I was doing this test, I thought I would try it out on eye makeup.

Well, it sort of works? The mineral eyeliner and waterproof liner seem to come off all right, as does the Wet N Wild and Sugar Kiss glitter liner. The NYC liquid liner and waterproof mascara are both still stuck on, even after a fair bit of rubbing.

I will probably keep using this as my facial cleanser, but definitely can’t rely on it to get off my eye makeup.

And just for laughs… hand soap!

Just curious to see how regular hand soap (Method brand from Target, in this case) does at cleaning off eye makeup.

Well, it does amazingly well at everything except waterproof mascara (which is what that dark line on the left is too), which will come off if you scrub like crazy… which no one wants to do because we’d like to keep our eyelashes intact. But if you’re in a bind and don’t have anything else, I suppose it’s better than nothing?

And there you have it. I hope that was somewhat helpful and/or informative!

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