Five Best Cleansing Waters For Problem Skins

I love the ease and effectiveness of cleansing waters as they leave my skin feeling really clean and eradicate the faffing about needed for wash-off cleansing.

I like to do both and I do try to use a wash-off cleanser regularly (especially as I’m spot-prone at the moment) but I still use cleansing waters on a daily basis; either in the morning to remove any night treatments, or in the evening as the first part of my double cleanse.

When my skin isn’t misbehaving, I happily use a cleansing water instead of other cleansing methods to remove all make-up and leave my skin feeling thoroughly cleansed.

Here’s a list of the best cleansing waters I’ve recently used:

If you’re oily/combination, try:

Nick Lowe Sebum Control Cleanser 

This isn’t technically marketed as a cleansing water, but for all intents and purposes, it’s a cleanser in liquid form which cleanses and tones in one go, which is pretty much what a cleansing water does.

I love this for when my skin is seriously playing up as it doesn’t dry me out, yet it works really well as a make-up remover.

You can buy it from the Nick Lowe online store here for £10.20, or at Boots stores.

If you’re oily, try:

No7 Beautiful Skin Cleansing Water*

This is a good choice if you suffer from really oily skin, as it mattifies effectively making it a great product for morning skincare prep, especially as it has a lovely, fresh fragrance.

This isn’t good for skin prone to dryness as the mattifying properties are quite drying, but it’s gentle enough for oily/spot-prone/combi skin types.

You can buy it from Boots here for £9.

If you’re spot prone, try:

Vichy Normaderm Micellar Water For Imperfection Prone and Sensitive Skin 

If you love your products with a catchy and easy to remember name, here’s your girl! This is a micellar solution which are renowned for their make-up removing properties and are truly fantastic cleansers.

This one will definitely make you feel like you’re doing your bit in the spot-fighting battle, without leaving your skin feeling stripped of all the good oils it needs.

This one seems slightly trickier to locate; I bought mine from Boots but there’s no image on the site and it’s showing as out of stock.  However, you can purchase it from Pharmacy at Hand here, for the discounted rate of £6.93 (normally £10.50).

If your skin is sensitive, try:

Decleor Aroma Cleanse Cleansing Water 

This is a very gentle cleansing water that leaves skin feeling clean and soothed.

It is a bit slower at removing make-up than the others in this list, but it won’t aggravate any sensitivity issues, nor will it exacerbate breakouts or dryness.

This is the most expensive in the list, but it’s non-fragranced and incredibly mild.

It’s available from the Decleor site here priced at £22.20.

If you only try one, try:

Bioderma Sensibio

I’m yet to read a bad review of this micellar water and with good reason.  It’s amazingly effective at melting away make-up and is gentle enough to literally put in your eye;

I tightline my eyes, meaning I apply eyeliner on the inside of my eye which gives a great effect, but is very tricky to remove.

However, Bioderma is so gentle that you can comfortably use it on the inner eye without any issue; and I have very sensitive eyes!

The down side of this is that it isn’t readily available in the UK, but I purchase mine from an eBay store here, for £12.49 for 2 bottles of 250ml.

So if you’ve never tried a cleansing water before, hopefully this list will help you decide which one is best for your skin.

*PR Sample