it's michelle from lab muffin beauty science here chemistry phd and skincare nerd
and person who hates washing their face over the sink so today i thought i'd show you how i remove
my makeup and wash my face without using a sink while busting some cleanser myths i
already busted a whole bunch of myths that people sent in but i couldn't finish busting them all
i used to use this method a lot when i was camping and on the plane and i've been using this method
in australia because it's currently winter here and i hate washing my face at night and having
the water drip down my wrists and into my sleeves and then i have to go to sleep wearing wet sleeves
i'm going to start by removing my eye makeup with a two-phase eye makeup remover i don't think i've
ever talked about this one before but it's the garnier clean sensitive two-in-one gentle makeup
remover these two face removers have two layers the blue layer is an oily layer this one is based
on cyclopentasiloxane which is a silicone that's very light and evaporates easily the bottom layer
is water-based and it's got lots of humectants in it to hydrate i use it with a reusable cotton
velour pad this one is from the brand bambu so with these you just shake it up first and
then you pour it onto the pad i really like these two face makeup removers because they
take off waterproof eye makeup really gently and quickly without too much tugging or irritation
micellar water works for this too but i find that these ones are just a bit quicker when
i'm traveling i use micellar water because it just means i have one less thing to carry
i found that some of these two in one makeup removers do leave a little bit of an oily residue
it really depends on which one you're using and where you're using it as well this one doesn't
leave too much of a residue but it is still there i don't mind that oily feeling near my eyes but
i really don't like it on other parts of my face so if you don't like that oily film or
you're trying to put makeup on top right away then i would recommend a micellar water instead
okay let's get into the myths again unfortunately a lot of these answers aren't just a simple yes
or no that is actually really how a lot of these myths came about there is some grain of truth in
there first myth you need to use an oil-based cleanser to remove makeup or sunscreen because
oil dissolves oil you don't it really depends on how strong your cleanser is how resistant
your sunscreen and makeup are and really what you prefer to use in your routine oil cleansers
weren't really popular in skincare until pretty recently and people got on fine without it and
that's even with things like grease paint that you use for stage makeup if you think about washing
greasy dishes you don't need a cleansing oil to wash those you just use dishwashing liquid the
reason is dishwashing liquid and regular cleansers have ingredients in them called surfactants
surfactants look like this they have a water loving head and an oily tail that likes oil in the
one package so that means surfactants can help oil droplets go into water and then they can be washed
off so that oil dissolves oil thing still works because that oily surfactant tail can basically
behave like an oil annalisa @skinperspective on instagram she's a great person to follow
she did this cool demonstration with a uv camera after putting on a water resistant
sunscreen she washed one side of her face with a regular gel cleanser and the other side with
a cleansing oil followed by a gel cleanser and you can see both sides ended up around
the same but a lot of people including me still really like using a cleansing oil or balm first
i like using very gentle foaming cleansers and i like the feeling of rubbing a balm on my face
it's really just a preference so cleansing balm followed by a foaming cleanser works best for me
now i'm moving on to a cleansing balm this is then i met you living cleansing balm this is
one of my all-time favorite products i actually got caroline hirons onto it as well the next myth
is you need to use a water-based cleanser after a cleansing oil to remove the oil
this really depends on the cleansing oil some of these leave more of a film and others don't you
can usually let the oily residue stay on your face but some people don't like the feel of that that's
the main reason i personally use a water-based cleanser afterwards sometimes i won't if i want
to leave that oil on my skin if my skin's feeling really dry i find that my skin tends to quite like
the oil but if your skin is breaking out for example you might want to wash off that oil
and of course it really depends on your skin and the particular oils in your cleansing oil
when i normally cleanse at this stage i would step into the shower and wash this off but i'm
not about to strip and do that for you that is premium content for a different website so instead
i'm going to be using a wet cotton cloth to wipe this off this cloth is from alpha h it comes in a
set of seven it's really handy when i'm traveling i'll sometimes use the makeup wipe for this stage
so the next question is are makeup wipes really bad i guess it's a no makeup wipes aren't that
good for the environment and if it's your only cleansing step then it's probably not that good
a lot of makeup wipes just have water and a bit of solvent in them they don't have surfactants
and so they're not going to be as effective at removing water resistant sunscreen and makeup
as something with surfactants there are some wipes that use similar ingredients to micellar
water and those will work a lot better and apart from not removing sunscreen and makeup
properly the fact that they don't work very well means that people tend to use them too much they
use them too harshly they put too much pressure on they tug a lot at their skin and that leads
to irritation and if you're using makeup wipes every day and that wipe is quite rough that can
also act as a physical exfoliation step if your skin barrier isn't quite up to daily physical
exfoliation then that can also irritate your skin there is also the waste issue makeup wipes are
often made using a bit of plastic so if you're using one a day it feels kind of unnecessary
i only really use them in rare situations where i don't have water and a cloth handy so makeup wipes
aren't like liquid evil but they're probably not the best option for your daily cleanse
now on to my next step which is wiping down with micellar water i'm using bioderma sensibio
h2o micellar water this is my favorite i've talked about it a whole bunch i'm using it
with a terrycloth reusable makeup pad this one is also from bambu so this is really just to get
rid of that extra oil from the cleansing balm this particular cleansing balm leaves a bit of residue
now do you need to rinse off micellar water i'm really sorry but the answer is it depends
it mostly depends on the micellar water you're using because there are lots of different micellar
waters on the market they use lots of different ingredients and they have different formulas
if you're not sure about your micellar water then it's probably best to rinse it off but this
particular one was actually specifically developed for people with sensitive skin
living in areas where the tap water can be quite irritating so it was specifically developed to
avoid rinsing and it was tested on thousands of people with sensitive skin we often think
of surfactants as irritating ingredients that need to be rinsed off but the class of surfactants is
really broad almost every skin care product you use has surfactants in it including all
your leave-on serums and moisturizers one of the big reasons for this confusion is that in
regular chemistry surfactants refer to anything with a water-loving head and an oil-loving tail
but in cosmetic chemistry a lot of the time people use the word surfactant just to mean
the surfactants in traditional cleansers i think the european commission classifies
them in quite a nice way they divide them into different subclasses one of them is cleansing
but we also have dispersing emulsifying foam boosting hydrotrope and solubilizing
so there are lots of different functions that different surfactants can have
cleansing surfactants are the ones that you find in cleansers while emulsifying surfactants
are the ones that are used in traditional creams and moisturizers and a lot of serums
and they keep the oily and watery parts of those products together so they don't separate
if you pick up any moisturizer chances are it'll have cetearyl alcohol in it that's a fatty alcohol
if we look it up in the european commission database it's classified as three types of
surfactant in any moisturizer there's going to be some sort of emulsifying surfactant it wouldn't be
a moisturizer without that ingredient so clearly some surfactants can be left on your skin without
problems others can't and of course it also depends on the concentration and the formula
the surfactant that bioderma used in this product is peg-6 caprylic/capric glycerides
this is classified as an emulsifying surfactant it isn't used as a cleansing surfactant in
regular cleansers when it's included in a normal cleanser it's actually used as a superfatting
agent these are ingredients that are added to cleansers to make them more gentle they
act like oils or emollients they hydrate and moisturize your skin another micellar water i
really like is this one by bioessence my friend larry yeo gave it to me when i was in singapore
last he is a makeup artist it actually uses that same surfactant that's in the bioderma products
peg-6 caprylic capric glycerides it also uses another one called peg-7 glyceryl cocoate
unilever have also presented research showing that their micellar water is as gentle as regular water
i'm assuming it's the simple one that one also uses that same surfactant i think there
are definitely micellar waters out there that use less gentle surfactants and those should probably
be rinsed off if your skin is having trouble with any micellar water then just rinse it off
remember it could be something else in the formula that's causing the irritation maybe a
fragrance or a preservative or even just the ph of the micellar water and it could also
just be the cotton pads that you're using with your micellar water i found that with rougher
disposable makeup pads my skin got really irritated with micellar waters and that was
just from that extra physical exfoliation sort of like if you use the makeup wipe every day
these reusable cotton pads are a lot softer than the disposable pads i was using before
and i haven't had a problem with these and you can see from the pad that i did actually
have some makeup left on my skin after the cleansing balm it's not just removing the oil
do you need to cleanse in the morning do you need to double cleanse in the morning well you
do put products on your skin at night if you're a skincare person and on top of that overnight your
skin produces sebum and sweat and dust probably falls on it as well so there is definitely stuff
on your face that could be cleansed off but in general your face is probably pretty clean your
products also get wiped off onto your pillowcase and in general it's really hard for any products
to form a solid film on your skin that won't be disrupted for a long time there are actually
studies where people were trying to make barrier creams that would prevent stuff from getting into
your skin and even when they were trying it didn't work very well so it isn't like you've got a layer
on your face that other skincare products can't get through by default most studies on cleansers
have been done on people who have acne and the protocol is always using the cleanser twice a day
i don't think there's actually any study that's tested once versus twice a day with cleansers
i personally found that not washing my face with a proper cleanser in the morning and
just splashing water on my face and wiping it off was actually really beneficial i have
very dehydration prone skin that gets dried out very easily with things like cleansers
and i always get that tight uncomfortable feeling on my face and i also have oily skin and i found
that once i stopped using a proper cleanser in the morning my face was a lot more manageable
i was actually producing less oil my skin was more hydrated but when i was wearing masks a
lot i found that my skin broke out a lot more and a quick wipe with a micellar water in the
morning was actually quite helpful for that so i think this is a very individual thing
it really depends on your skin and the products you're using but it isn't a hard and fast rule
that you have to cleanse a certain number of times a day i'm sure we all know someone who
never washes their face properly and their skin is really happy and never breaks out
so all of this was really just an excuse to multitask and clean my face while working and so
i am ready for bed now let me know if you try out this method like subscribe click the
nerdification bell check out my blog and follow me on instagram i'll see you next time good night