How to Remove Makeup Properly From Your Skin

Woman removing makeup

After a long day out on the town with a full face of makeup, you’ll need to remove it when you get home. However, the process is a little bit more involved than just scrubbing your face until it looks like you’ve gotten rid of everything. Here’s why it’s important to properly remove makeup from your skin, and how you should go about doing it.

Importance of Removing Makeup

You’ve probably heard from just about every beauty magazine, website, and expert who you’ve consulted that you need to remove your makeup every time you’re done using it, but why? What difference does it make whether you remove and reapply makeup every day, or just touch up the old makeup in the morning? It’s actually surprisingly important to your skin’s health. Leaving makeup on your skin when you go to bed allows oils, bacteria, and dirt that have gathered on your face throughout the day to mingle with your makeup and cause buildup, clogged pores, acne, and irritation. That being said, though, how exactly do you remove makeup from your skin?

Steam Your Face Beforehand

Before you start the makeup removal process, you should steam your face. To do this, bring a small pot of water to a full boil. Pour the boiling water into a bowl, and hold your face over the bowl to catch the steam. The heat and steam will open up your pores a bit. it makes easier to remove the makeup and reducing the odds of any debris getting caught in them. From there, you’re all good to start removing your makeup!

Be Gentle

While you may be tempted to just do a quick rough scrub to remove all of your makeup in one go. This isn’t the best way to go about it. Instead, you should wash your face with gentle and deliberate motions. Ensure that you remove makeup from some of the harder to get to areas of your face and preventing the wash from being too abrasive on your skin. This will prevent the irritation that can come from the makeup removal process itself.

Use Soap and Water

Woman washing her face with soap and water

When you’re washing your face, use soap and water instead of something like a baby wipe. While baby wipes are more convenient. They have a tendency to push dirt and grime back into your pores. It causes you to wake up the next morning with a face full of blackheads. Soap and water, however, will help you to scrub the makeup and dirt from your face entirely.

Have a Cleanser on Hand

After using soap and water to get rid of the makeup itself, follow up with a gentle facial cleanser. Though it may not be immediately obvious, there may still be a few barely visible traces of makeup or dirt on your face, as well as some residual bacteria, all of which will disturb your skin if left untreated. Simply apply the cleanser and rinse one more time, getting rid of those last few remainders and leaving your skin fresh and clean.

Wipe Your Eyes as Well

Woman using cotton pads

Pay a bit of extra attention to the areas around your eyes when wiping off your makeup. Eye makeup is quite a bit more stubborn than other types of makeup like foundation. Especially when you consider the makeup that can hide in the eyebrows and lashes. You’ll need to be more thorough with those areas to ensure you remove all the makeup. But you’ll also need to be a bit more careful to ensure you don’t irritate the surrounding skin or damage your brows and lashes. It’s best to use a dedicated makeup remover product for this. It’ll help you to get rid of the makeup effectively without having to apply excessive amounts of pressure.

Use Cotton Pads

The material you’re washing your face with matters just about as much as the products, so pay special attention to that as well. We’ve found that reusable cotton pads work best. They’re far gentler than something like a washcloth. But can reuse easily, and are therefore cheaper than makeup wipes. Essentially, they provide both cost efficiency and are gentle on your skin, making them the best possible choice for your makeup removal routine.

Apply Moisturizer After

Woman applying moisturizer after removing makeup

Once you’ve finished removing the makeup from your face, be sure to apply a gentle moisturizer. Wearing makeup tends to dry out your skin, so applying moisturizer every night after removing makeup. It is essential to keeping your face from becoming dehydrated and irritated. By doing this, you can enjoy all your favorite makeup styles without any of the drawbacks to your skin.

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