Beauty: Naturally, with Kathleen Harris

Even after a long day, I prefer to spend a few minutes removing the day’s gunk and grime from my face with a proper cream cleanser than to quick-fix my way through the cleansing process with a wipe. Facial cleansing wipes might be cheap, easy to use and effective at removing make-up, but there are many reasons why these time-saving towelettes should not be a part of your daily skincare routine.

First, those colour blotches on your wipe might make it look like it’s working hard to clean your skin, but it’s not. A wipe collects some of the dirt, make-up and bacteria that build up throughout the day, but what it doesn’t wipe off, it just smears across – bad news particularly for anyone prone to spots or acne.

The leftovers also form a barrier for anything you apply after – all those vitamins and anti-ageing antioxidants packed into your favourite serum or moisturiser won’t be able to find their way into the skin.

Not only do wipes fail to completely take away nasties, they tend to add to them. Many contain harsh ingredients such as alcohol and chemicals called surfactants that dissolve make-up. These can easily irritate and dry out skin and cause redness, tightness or stinging.

They also often contain questionable preservatives and antibacterial agents, parabens, phthalates and fragrances, and because wipes aren’t made for rinsing, many of these ingredients stay on the skin.

If you do use wipes, at least give your face a quick rinse if you can to remove any leftover grime and drying, irritating ingredients.

Then there’s the problem of physically wiping your face. If the cloth isn’t soft enough or if the ingredients are harsh enough, you could end up scratching the skin’s surface. And scrubbing away at the skin to remove make-up, particularly around the delicate eye area, could prematurely age it. When using wipes, try patting the skin rather than wiping or dragging it.

Lastly, wipes are added waste. Those of us whose beauty routines go beyond a modest bar of soap are most likely adding plenty of bottles, tubs and tubes to landfills and recycling plants as it is. Why add disposable cloths to the heap when reusable face towels, fingers and water will do?

That said, not all wipes are created equal and they do have their uses.

When you’re time-strapped, travelling, festival-going or simply exhausted, wipes are handy to have.

There are a number of brands that offer wipes without some harmful ingredients, but there is one brand that contains almost nothing at all – in a good way. WaterWipes (€3.49), available in supermarkets, health food stores and pharmacies, contain 99.9 per cent purified water, grapefruit seed extract and sea minerals. That’s it. Hypoallergenic and dermatologically tested, these wipes do not sting or leave the skin feeling tight or dry. They have a mild fresh scent and the cloth is lovely and soft. Quite unexpectedly, they’re effective at removing make-up – even the particularly stubborn mascara I tested came off.

When I use wipes to remove eye make-up, I gently press the wipe against my eye and hold it there for a few seconds before gently dabbing the make-up away.

I recently added a pack of WaterWipes to my gym bag for a quick pre-workout clean-up and I’ll keep them handy for the odd time. They deliver on the promises declared on the packaging – just ignore the bit where it says “for daily use”.

kharris@irishtimes.com