Eye Makeup Remover Review

Hey there!

Let the record show that at the beginning of this project Philosophy Purity Made Simple skin cleanser was my holy grail face cleanser. It removed everything that you could think of--waterproof, super sticker, whatever. I had faith that it would work. I knew that it would remove eye makeup without irritating my eyes and boy are my eyes sensitive. (Not to bore you with the details but if you want to know how sensitive, read my Blepharitis post here).

I only tried this little experiment out because I received a Lancôme free GWP eye makeup remover several months ago. One of the freebies was the Bi-Facil Double Action Eye Makeup Remover ($28 for 4.2 oz & $38 for 6.8 oz). It's "oil" and "water" mix that reacts the way "real" oil and water does. You have to shake it well before you use it. It's a decent eye makeup remover with no burning. I find that it doesn't get all of my makeup off but it does a decent enough job if you aren't wearing mascara.

I picked up a Simple Eye Makeup Remover ($7 for 4.2 oz). The bottle says that Simple is the Sensitive Skin Experts and claims to remove waterproof mascara. Yeahhhh, this stuff is slightly better than water. It removed just as much make up as basic water removes. And, because it's as effective as water, it doesn't irritate my eyes at all...because it's water. I don't remember what I paid for this but if I could find the receipt, I would have taken this back (or drink it because I'm pretty sure IT'S WATER!).

Wet n Wild Oil-free Eye Makeup Remover ($2.19 for 3 oz) is a very cost saving eye makeup remover. No, not because it's cheap and you can find it BOGO free or half price but because it stings the hell out of my eyes so I will NEVA use it again. I used it once, just once and my eyes burned so freakin' much I wanted to cry. Look at the bottle! It doesn't even look like I tried it. I'm not even putting this in my empties bin -- I'm tossing it immediately.

After that I decided that my Philosophy Purity Made Simple ($10 for 3 oz, $23 for 8 oz, $35 for 16 oz & $42 for 24 oz) is the only eye makeup remover that I need to use. It works very well (I mean melts makeup off, really it does!) and it doesn't bother my eyes or my face. I use this stuff to clean my foundation brushes. You know how hard it is to clean the Sigma F80. Purity obliterates the makeup on the brush.

I highly recommend Purity. If you don't want to buy the bigger bottles (I purchased mine from QVC and paid over 3 months), Sephora has a smaller bottle that you can test and decide (you'll love it!).

And I don't plan to try this again. I love my Purity cleanser and the only thing that came close was the Lancôme remover. As expensive as the Purity is, it's chump change compared to the Lancôme!

What are you currently using? Do you like it or just tolerate it? Does price make a difference for you?

Footnote - I did these tests 3 months ago, before finding out that I have Blepharitis and before I started having eye troubles so this testing was not biased by my eye issues. Once my eyes began giving me trouble I stopped wearing eye makeup and therefore didn't need eye makeup remover.