Review: Pond's Luminous Clean Wet Cleansing Towelettes

Greetings from the Dark Side!

For most of 2013, I was using the Simple Cleansing Facial Wipes to remove my foundation every night. A few months ago, though, that changed when I saw these Pond's makeup removing wipes on sale (BOGO Free). I thought I had nothing to lose from trying out a new brand of makeup removing wipes so I ended up purchasing two packs. Now that I finished both packs, I want to finally give you a proper review. If you have used these before, let me know what you think of these in the comments section.

The Pond's Luminous Clean Cleansing Towelettes are makeup removing wipes that contain White Kaolin Clay. These "soft, textured cleansing cloths" claim to "gently draw out trapped makeup and impurities to instantly revive dull skin".  They also claim to "draw out deep-dwelling impurities" while "effective emollients such as Glycerin which draws moisture from the environment, leaving skin feeling soft and smooth". These retail for about $4-5 for a packet 30 wipes.

 I decided to try these cleansing wipes because they claimed to be effective makeup removers while also moisturizing the skin. I have combination skin so I need something that will remove excess oil/makeup/dirt from my T-zone while not being too drying for my cheeks. Also, they had really great reviews on MakeupAlley, so I really hoped these would work well.

Firstly, I have to say that I love the smell of these. They have a light, delicate fragrance which is pleasing to my sense of smell. Taking out one of the wipes out of the package is always a nice treat for my smell receptors! xD The towelette itself is quite moist and it has enough moisture to comfortably remove makeup (I absolutely hate when the wipes are dry!). These are not smooth textured, though. Each towelette has a textured pattern on it that makes wiping makeup away more effective. I find the texture to be quite rough on my skin, and I have to make sure to be really gentle when wiping this on my face.

Here are the problems I have with these. The wipes are very moist, but they have what appears to be soap-y like foam. This concerns me because soap-like products can be very drying on the skin. And it appears my concerns were valid: after using a towelette my skin feels very dry. Now, I think that these do have moisturizing properties because I can feel and see the sort of brightening/moisturizing effect that they have. However, the rough texture and soap-y foam of these towelettes make them more drying than moisturizing. I think they would be great for oily skin or with people with very tough skin. But for my combination skin, these were just too drying. They left my skin stripped and in some serious need of hydration. The last concern I have is that the packaging is not very good for these wipes. If you leave the opening facing down, some of the liquid that keeps the towelettes moist might leak. This happened to mine on a few occasions, albeit I could have just remembered to keep them facing up. But if this does happen a few times it can cause the towelettes to dry up before you even use them up. If they dry up, it would be a total waste of money! On my second pack, the last few wipes were in fact dry.

Although these are inexpensive and easily available to me, I don't think they do my skin much good. I tried these out to see if they would be good, but it turns out that they are not a good match for my combination-dry skin. They dried my skin out and were too rough in texture. I think I much prefer the Simple Cleansing Facial Wipes. They are about the same price but better for drier skin. But you can try them out for yourself and see how they work for you.