How to Gently Remove Makeup and Stop Ruining Your Towels

Ok I’m about to share some tips that I know first hand about 90% of my girlfriends don’t know because whenever they’re at my place and wash their faces all of a sudden I have two eyeball-sized black marks on my pink towels. I find taking my makeup off incredibly annoying and I think I lose about 30 minutes of sleep every night because I procrastinate getting ready for bed just because I dread it so much, but I ALWAYS do it. Here’s how I remove my makeup:

1. Remove foundation from face and neck with a nice soothing gentle makeup remover wipe. I will wipe my eyeshadow off with the wipe as well, but if some is left over that is fine. The wipes I use (and I mentioned in my August Favorites) are Boots No7 Quick Thinking Wipes and definitely get the value pack. These have a nice snap closure to keep them from drying out. I try to gently and slowly pull of my falsies if I’m wearing them and you can also put liquid eye makeup remover onto a cotton round and hold it on top of the falsies to loosen them up before removing them. These Boots No7 wipes say they will remove waterproof eye makeup, but I wear about 10 coats of mascara and if I try to remove it with these wipes I’d be in my bathroom all night scrubbing and when I was done I wouldn’t have any lashes left. Luckily I do know of a product that will do this for you in the next step!

2. I’ve tried many products that have burned the bee-jesus out of my eyeballs and it turns out the best makeup remover was in your grandma’s beauty cabinet this whole time:

This stuff is great. It’s cheap (about $5 for a small jar) and it’s available at Target and drug stores. It’s also the most effective makeup remover I’ve ever used and the most gentle one as well. When I was getting this picture I noticed there’s mineral oil in it which I vaguely remember someone telling me was bad for you. I googled it for about 2 seconds and one website said it’s bad and one said it’s fine. There’s not enough time in the day to keep track of everything on Earth that is trying to kill me at any given moment so I’m just gonna go ahead and keep using this stuff since I rinse it off immediately anyway and don’t use it as a moisturizer. Depending on how much eye makeup I’m wearing, sometimes I’m literally rubbing this practically onto my eyeballs and it still will not burn. What I do is I scoop out a decent size dollop of cold cream with a Target Cotton Round:

It’s important to use something soft in order to be as gentle as possible near your eye area because Elizabeth Taylor was the only one who could spare some eyelashes and you don’t want to give yourself fine lines. I do one eye at a time so I can see with the other one if I got all of the makeup off. If I’m wearing night time makeup I typically will use two of these (one cotton round with cold cream on each eye). I’ll also use this to remove bold lip colors. For my eyes I rub the cream in with the cotton round in soft circular motions and make sure to get to my mascara from the top of my eye part of my lid and the bottom (like the way you applied it in the first place). I keep going until most of it is gone and then I use the dry side to wipe it clean. I then rinse my eyes with warm water gently rubbing right in my lash line and on my water lines as well. I also will rinse my eyes and the inner corners and try to get any last bits out (cute). I will then use the same makeup wipe I used before to remove any excess eye makeup. Now that you’re makeup is off, you’re all finished. Just kidding! Only 800 steps to go before bed (ok not 800, but skin care seriously feels like that sometimes).

3. Next up you want to wash your face. I had some moderate acne from about ages 10-22 and then I went on a diet that was soy-heavy and followed a friend’s (thanks Jenna- she uses Irish Springs btw) advice and started using a simple bar soap to wash my face. I’ve use Dove bar soap for many years now and it works well enough for me. All the acne face washes and toners and creams are all just so harsh it just feels like they further piss your skin off.

Again- cheap, simple, has been around forever for a reason, readily available, and makes my skin feel clean. If I wore a super cake face that day or night I will wash, rinse, and repeat to make sure I got it all out of my pores. Diva tip- hide this when you have people over so they don’t use it to wash their hands or use it in your shower to wash their body because eww. My dermatologist (and every dermatologist ever it seems like) recommends Cetaphil and CeraVe if you’re not into bars. And since I cannot wash my face without getting the entire bathroom soaked, I always have a face cloth/rag handy to wipe all the water off my counters. I don’t go so far as to dry my face with a clean towel every night because seriously who wants to do that much laundry? But by the time I do dry my face I definitely do not get any makeup on my towels. I also don’t have that black/gray haze around my eyes that I used to get when I’d wash my face with only soap that would force be to wear makeup again the next day to cover it up.

4. Skincare– obviously this is going to get it’s own post.

So now onto the travel tips:

• I take a cotton round, scoop some cold cream onto it and then put another cotton round on top like a little sandwich and I put one for every night that I’ll be away in a little snack sized zip lock. This is much less messy then having an oily eye makeup remover explode all over your bag. You also won’t have to worry about it being 3oz. for your carry on if you’re flying.
• I bring my bar of Dove in a little plastic travel case that I then put into a plastic bag so it won’t leak if it’s wet.
• I always bring a pack of makeup wipes and if I’m bringing a travel sized container of them I’ll put it in a plastic bag so they won’t dry out.
• In the same bag as the makeup remover wipes I pack 1-2 face cloths. I use the face cloths to dry my face when people’s bathroom towels are unavailable or look sketchy, when I’m worried I haven’t removed all of my makeup to prevent staining their towels, and to wipe down around the sink if necessary because I’m a polite guest.
• If someone does get makeup on your towels be sure to spray them immediately with a stain spray like Shout or OxyClean and put it in your hamper to wash later.