The Truth About Face Wipes
The Truth About Face Wipes
We hate to break it to you, but makeup wipes are the worst! We can see why people turn to them though. They come across as incredibly convenient, especially when traveling or after a big night.
They don’t require any rinsing and they seemingly ‘remove’ your makeup pretty quickly.
With that being said, we think if people knew what they were actually doing to their skin, they’d think again when reaching for a packet at the supermarket!
If you’re still using face wipes to cleanse your skin at night, then it’s time to keep reading and discover the truth about a swipe with a face wipe.
They don’t actually cleanse your skin!
Surely if you can see the eye shadow, foundation and everything in between on your face wipe, it’s done a good job at cleansing your skin, right? Wrong.
Face wipes unfortunately don’t do our skin justice because they’re not actually manufactured to cleanse the skin! Yep, a big truth bomb there. They’re not a cleansing tool but something that’s been designed to break down particles from your makeup. This means any other skincare products that you’re using can’t actually work to their full ability.
Instead, what they do best is smear around the makeup, dirt, dead skin cells and pollutants that are left on your face. These impurities stay firmly on the skin once you’ve finished using the wipe and begin a cycle of irritation, congestion and serious build up.
If you’re relying on a face wipe to cleanse your skin, it’s really time to ditch them and start supporting your skin’s integrity. We always recommend double cleansing with a professionally prescribed cleanser. Our brands of choice are Cosmedix and Skin Better Science for an exceptional cleanse that supports not only your skin but your other hard working products.
They’re a one-way ticket to inflammation and redness
One thing face wipes do very well is disrupt your acid mantle, the protective layer of your skin that seals in moisture and defends against the impurities that make their way into your skin. Such an important layer of the skin is stripped by face wipe devotes, taking the skin’s natural oils with it. This leads to serious inflammation, redness and even accelerated ageing.
One of the key causes of this inflammation is thanks to the preservatives and chemicals that are in the wipes themselves. A combination of surfactants, emulsifiers, fragrances and alcohol are the common culprits in face wipes that are not removed from the skin because you guessed it, face wipes promote a no rinsing routine. Yikes. Pair this with a disrupted acid mantle and these nasty chemicals are doing more damage than you anticipated a flimsy little wipe could do.
The ingredients list in your most common face wipe brands truly do worry us because many turn to these to remove the likes of eyeliner and waterproof mascara. Put two and two together and that’s some very harmful chemicals on a very delicate area of the skin.
They’re likely one of the reasons for your breakouts
Now, you wouldn’t exfoliate your face morning and night every single day, would you? Unfortunately, if you’re using face wipes each day, you are.
The notion of removing makeup with a face wipe has a lot of pulling and rubbing involved which is widely considered a form of manual exfoliation. Not only does this unnecessary exfoliation contribute to redness and inflammation but it’s likely the cause of unwanted breakouts too.
As you’ve learnt by now, face wipes leave a lot of residues, product build up and dead skin cells on the skin. These have nowhere to go but into your pores which leads to blackheads, congestion and acne. Each time you rub these breakouts with another face wipe, you’re aggravating the area and increasing the inflammation – aka the worst thing to do with any breakout.
They’re really bad for the environment (like really bad)
We couldn’t share the truth about face wipes without mentioning their significant impact on the environment. If disrupting your skin wasn’t enough, face wipes contribute to the world’s landfill significantly each and every day.
Face wipes, of any kind, are a single-use item which cannot be composted or recycled. Instead, they take hundreds of years to breakdown and end up in our waterways and in landfill. Throw their plastic packaging into the mix and you’ve got a terrible contributor to our global environmental crisis right in your bathroom.
So, ready to ditch the face wipes for healthier skin and a happier planet? Book your consultation with the +Aesthetics team and let’s match you with the perfect cleansing solution.