Removing make-up should be one of the simplest gestures of your evening routine: apply cleansing milk, remove make-up and impurities and go to sleep with clean skin. But when waterproof mascara comes into play, things change a lot.
A test conducted by the Swiss magazine K-Tipp out of 10 facial cleansing milks showed very evident differences between one product and another. Some manage to remove resistant make-up with relative ease, others require several steps and therefore risk forcing us to insist more on the skin.
And the price, once again, does not seem to be a guarantee of effectiveness.
The worst cleansing milks in the test
Let’s start with the products that convinced the least. Among those finishing in the lower part of the ranking are Lidl’s Cien cleansing milk and Lavera’s. Dr. Hauschka also did poorly, a particularly interesting result because it was the most expensive product among those analyzed.
Of course, this does not mean that these cleansing milks are incapable of removing any type of make-up. In fact, the test highlighted that traditional lipstick does not represent a major obstacle: all the products examined managed to remove it without particular difficulties. The real test was another.
@K-Tipp
@K-Tipp
Waterproof mascara has put several products in difficulty
Waterproof mascara was created to resist water and humidity and to last longer than traditional formulas. And this is where the differences between the ten products became much more apparent. To obtain satisfactory removal, in several cases it was necessary to repeat the cleansing milk step several times. A not irrelevant detail, especially when we talk about the area around the eyes, where having to rub repeatedly is certainly not ideal. The test was not limited, however, to measuring how much makeup was actually eliminated.
The laboratories also looked for 24 fragrance substances considered potentially allergenic.
Ingredients of this type were identified in 6 out of 10 products. The substances detected include, for example, linalool and limonene, present in some of the products analyzed, including Naturaline, Dr. Hauschka, Cien and Lavera.
These are substances used above all to perfume cosmetics and which, in people who are already sensitized, can promote contact reactions such as irritation, redness or swelling. An aspect to consider even more when the product is used daily near the eyes and lips.
What were the best cleansing milks?
On the other side of the ranking we find a surprise: taking first place was Nivea’s Refreshing Cleansing Milk, which obtained a very good rating above all thanks to its ability to remove waterproof mascara. After two passes he had already managed to eliminate more than half of the mascara applied during the test. After four passes, the percentage removed reached 81%. A result that becomes even more interesting if you look at the price.
In the Swiss market taken into account by K-TippIn fact, the Nivea product cost 2.63 francs per decilitre, placing it among the cheapest alternatives in the comparison. Yet another demonstration of the fact that spending more does not necessarily mean purchasing the most effective product.
In second place is one of the cheapest products
Immediately behind Nivea was the I am cleansing milk, which received an overall good rating. In removing waterproof mascara it proved to be less effective than the winner, but it had another plus point: it was the cheapest product in the entire test. However, it is a reference that is not available on the Italian market.
For those who purchase in Italy, therefore, the most interesting data remains above all that relating to Nivea: the product that turned out to be the best was by no means the most expensive.
How the test was carried out
K-Tipp entrusted the analyzes to two laboratories, one in Germany and one in Poland. To test the make-up removing capacity of the ten cleansing milks, the technicians applied red lipstick and waterproof black mascara to the forearms of ten women for each category.
The skin was photographed before and after cleansing and the images were subsequently analyzed to measure how much make-up had actually been removed. At the same time, the laboratories looked for the 24 potentially allergenic perfume substances envisaged by the protocol.
Products in which these substances exceeded 10 mg/kg were penalized in the evaluation. In the end the comparison returned a rather clear result: for lipstick almost everyone gets by, but when waterproof mascara arrives the differences become much more evident.
And, at least in this test, the best cleansing milk wasn’t the one with the highest price.
