Archived Post
The Hit List: Worst Eye Makeup Remover
What’s the Worst Eye Makeup Remover…?
What brand/product wins this category? Any particular reason it wins?
Explore Temptalia
We're here to help you make better beauty purchases that you'll enjoy and love! We recommend signing up to take advantage of personalized features like tracking products you own, viewing dupes that you already have, and more!
Here are some useful resources for you:
Compare Any Two
Curious how two shades compare to each other? Type in the shades below to get instant side-by-side swatches!
60 Comments
Comments that do not adhere to our comment policy may be removed. Discussion and debate are highly encouraged but we expect community members to participate respectfully. Please keep discussion on-topic, and if you have general feedback, a product review request, an off-topic question, or need technical support, please contact us!
Please help us streamline the comments' section and be more efficient: double-check the post above for more basic information like pricing, availability, and so on to make sure your question wasn't answered already. Comments alerting us to typos or small errors in the post are appreciated (!) but will typically be removed after errors are fixed (unless a response is needed).
We appreciate enthusiasm for new releases but ask readers to please hold questions regarding if/when a review will be posted as we can't commit to or guarantee product reviews. We don't want to set expectations and then disappoint readers as even products that are swatched don't always end up being reviewed due to time constraints and changes in priorities! Thank you for understanding!
Comments on this post are closed.
We try to approve comments within 24 hours (and reply to them within 72 hours) but can sometimes get behind and appreciate your patience! 🙂 If you have general feedback, product review requests, off-topic questions, or need technical support, please contact us directly. Thank you for your patience!
The Duo Magique from Dior was horrible for me. It stung my eyes and made the skin on my lids flake. And I still had mascara left on my lashes. Never again!
It has to be the one by L’oreal for me. It burned my eyelids.
CVS Brand! It’s basically soapy water!
I find that Avon eye makeup remover stings. Ouch!
Avon is the worst eye make-up remover ever. It has stung my eyes. My eye lids are burn, with horrible red bumps. I went to the doctor today and I also have a severe dermatitis and infection and I just used it last night for the first time.
Maybelline one is so oily!
Benefit’s Gee that was Quick…Actually, any make-up remover Benefit has ever made.
They all burn your eyes like nobody’s business.
Taking off make-up should not hurt like that!
Hands down Wet N Wild. It stung and left my skin sticky and STINKY! Thats what I get for being a cheapo.
I second that I bought it a while back trying to save some money and boy oh boy did it burn my eyes.
The Neutrogena oil-free eye makeup remover! It still feels oily & it leaves a weird white residue if you don’t wash your face after or follow it with a wet cloth. BLECH.
Gee I use that every day and I’ve never had any problems with it. However, I do always at least splash my face with water after removing my makeup.
i liked it=] but i always did wash my face too
I found the same thing in regards to the residue.. It looks so gross! (And to me it also feels drying)
i second that, neutrogena was a bad experience; i downgraded bc i ran out of bi-facial and it didnt grab the mascara, just made it clumpy and left my face oily.
klorane. The worst.
Visine Eye Wipes. It burned my eyelids, and my eyes were all swollen and yucky the next day. Supposed to be for sensitive eyes. Hah!
I picked up some cheap Walgreens brand remover when I was traveling and had forgotten my own. It stung and barely took off any eye make-up. (BTW, my favorite is Sonia Kuschak’s from Target, make-up comes off so easily)
Physician’s Formula Organic Eye Make Up Remover, that didn’t even remove my eye make up, it gave me PANDA EYES!!!!!
The one from L’oreal was horrible. It barely took off any of my eye makeup.
L’oreal…takes half the bottle to clean my eyes, plus the sensation is horrible!
It’s not that it is sooo horrible but just for the price this is ridiculous. I’m talking about the Decléor “tous mascaras” eye makeup remover. It’s something like 40$ for a little bottle and it does nothing more than cheaper eye makeup remover. Very disapointing and it says that it is for all mascaras, and it sucks to remove waterproof ones. Not worthing the money at all!
The L’Oreal one in the blue bottle. It was so horrible I ended up throwing it away and I NEVER throw things away like that. It didn’t work for me and it burned my eyes.
Yup I agree the L’oreal one in the blue bottle doesn’t work at all. I have a once tried bottle in my medicine cabinet.
yep , hated that one .
another hater for the l’oreal blue bottle. stings my eyes and teh bottle doesnt make sense.
The covergirl eye and lip makeup remover. ughhhhh that stuff stinks soo bad. It smells like glue and i can’t stand to use it but i need to use it up so it doesn’t go to waste.
I LOVE Benefit as a brand and most of their products are great, but their “Gee, that was quick” makeup remover just does not work for me! Instead of cleaning off my makeup like it’s supposed to, it just spreads it around and gives me raccoon eyes. And it leaves kind of a sticky residue on my skin. And if it ever gets in my eye, it hurts! Not impressed… which is so unfortunate because I really love Benefit products most of the time!
Lancome bi-facil is meant to be non oily but it was really oily! Around my eyes felt so strange and horrible after using this, im glad it was only a sample and i didnt buy the whole thing!
I found that too – so many people like it and I was like, why?! I hated it!
Lancome. It is one that comes in a blue bottle (bi-facil maybe?). I got it as a fairly large sample and I tried to remove my eye makeup, I wasn’t wearing anything permanent or waterproof, and it barely smuged the makeup!
for the bi-facil you have to saturate it before you rub it off. if you press on it for 5 seconds, then it just slides off.
The Sephora Collection FACE eye makeup remover. It was completely ineffective and did not remove my eyeliner (Mac Fluidline) and barely removed eyeshadow.
I totally agree!!! Also the Caudalie water – whatever they were promoting as their tonic/make up remover etc. – sucked big time: didn’t remove anything, left me with oily lids, and smelled weird.
But my worst vote goes for Origins make up remover: plain nothing…
The L’Oreal eyemakeup remover in the blue bottle made the skin around my eyes flake, peel, burn, and get an irritated red thing growing on my lids so that I could not wear eyeshadow for a week until I changed removers. I also had to use so much of it to get all my eye makeup off.
The L’Oreal gentle makeup remover for eyes & lips (suitable for sensitive eyes), has made my eyes red and puffy and the skin looks like it’s burnt with red,wrinkly, sore spots. It’s revolting. I’ve never had anything like it and I’ve been wearing eye makeup for ever and using eye makeup removers without any reactions!! I’ve used this stuff before & thought it was pretty good so I don’t know whats up with this batch, maybe they got the formula wrong? has anyone else had this problem?
Mary Kay’s eye makeup remover is the worst one I’ve used. I borrowed some from my mother and after using it twice my lids were so dried out they hurt for days. I had to stop wearing eye makeup for a week while they recovered! Never again.
strange…i’ve sworn by mary kay oil-free eye makeup remover for 15 years. i’ve tried many high end brands and always go back to my mary kay. it takes all my eye makeup off, including my waterproof dior in seconds. i will never use anything else.
i agree…mary kay is my favorite! too bad it didn’t work out chibaraki
The only two brands I have tried are Mary Kay (which I LOVE) I always keep 2 bottles in the house, this is the only brand I have bought for last 5+ years.
The worst was Avon, my friend gave me a bottle because it was BOGO free, and it’s useless. Barely removes any makeup, what it does remove it just re-deposits back under my eyes. YUCK!
Urban Decay’s Clean & Sober stung the crap out of my eyes. It stung even after I washed my skin afterward with cleanser. I use Lush’s Ultra Bland now to remove my eyemakeup (not face, too greasy) and I can’t use anything else now. Not even the Sonia Kashuk remover, which I used to love. My eyelids are pansies. 🙁
The benefit one just plain doesn’t work, I hate it, I tried saturating the cotton pad and ugh still nothing, I even tried using it more then once and with a cotton ball instead. In fact all it does is move around the makeup all over my face. Even the sephora brand I have actually removes the makeup wonderfully just leaves you feeling greasy.
Lush Ultra Bland! I could never get anything out. It just feels like goob sitting on my face, eew.
Safeway Brand oil-free eye makeup remover! I bought it while on my honeymoon (My trusty Bi-facil was confiscated out of my carry-on at security!!!!). It burned the crap out of my eyes!!!
I have tried L’oreal one that was meant for waterproof mascara – it comes in a green bottle. It took a lot to get my mascara off, wasn’t strong enough like I thought it would be.
I bought some cheap Target brand last week and it is not supposed to be greasy but of course it is. It doesn’t sting my eyes and it does’t take off eye make-up that well either.
I generally don’t buy drug store brands cause for me it generally turns out to be a total waste of money but I thought I would try these out – mistake. I’ll be going for a replacement this weekend 🙂
The L’Oreal Demaq Expert in the yellow tube – it’s not an eye makeup remover as such but meant to remove long last makeup, including waterproof mascara, etc. It does remove makeup on your face OK but you spend so long rubbing it onto your eyes that you end up with this horrible scary film IN you eyes that goes all gummy and… oh lord, it’s too traumatic to even think about…
I don’t use a separate eye makeup remover anymore – my foaming cleanser actually gets it all off first time so that’s all good! 🙂
The Estee Lauder one in a dark blue bottle… Stung my eyes and gave me RED BUMPS on my eyelids!!! Yikes!
Loreal hands down!!!!!!!!!!!Not only did it sting like hell but the skin around my eyes started peeling..I looked like i had dandruff around my eyes and on my eyelids…Crappy piece of &%#*..Another one is almay..dont even get me started on that one:(
Sephora brand. This stuff just does NOT work.
L’Oréal; useless!!!!! did not remove anything.
on the contrary The BEST by far is Yves Rocher Cornflower eye makeup remover (bi-phase); as good as Bi-Facil (lancome) but at a fraction of the price. I am never without!
CLINIQUE.
My god it is AWFUL. The wash the day away is terrible. It’s sooo oily! Ugh. Does NOT remove my makeup much at all. So glad it was given to me by a friend and I didn’t waste money on it.
I actually wrote a review about it on my blog: http://the-beauty-bag.blogspot.com/2010/04/clinique-take-day-off-makeup-remover.html
Target’s own brand, Up and Up, makes a TERRIBLE one. I don’t have very sensitive skin at all, but within two seconds of putting it near my eyes, I was temporarily blind! I thought I’d accidentally purchased nail polish remover. Even soap and water didn’t completely remove the sting, and my eyes were bloodshot after I used it. Needless to say, I’ve thrown it out.
maybelline waterproof eye remover. it was horrible. didn’t remove any of eyemakeup!
#1 Neutrogena -burns my eyes
#2 Laura Mercier – doesn’t take off mascara without a lot of pulling, tugging, reapplications
I only use ordinary baby oil like johnsons & johnsons or nivea and after removing it with baby oil i wash it with baby soap. Not bad … don’t want to spend so much on eye makeup remover. It works for me.
Rimmel oil free…useless!
Ooops, I mean Maybelline oil free!
Loreal for sure, the one in the blue bottle doesn’t remove well and it left my eyelids red/stinging.
l’oreal demaq expert facial wipes DONT USE THEM! I used them for first time yesterday and OMG my eyes felt like they were on fire – they swelled up so badly I ended up being referred to the casualty department where i was given an injection plus steriods and anti histamine tablets. My face looked awful.
Safeway brand eye makeup remover is the worst! You have to SCRUB when using it and even then it doesn’t work. It’s pretty much just water with a little soap or something else in it. It sucks when compared to Neutragena’s makeup remover. Don’t buy it!!!
Nivea makeup remover wipes. OMG they burn! horribly!