Review: Neutrogena Deep Clean Makeup Remover

I've never really been one for makeup removing lotions, creams etc as I am a lazy bum who just wants to get to bed as quickly as possibly at night so the thought of spending 5-10 mins just removing my makeup is quite frankly exhausting.

However, the winds changed and I thought I'd give it a bash and try out Neutrogena's Deep Clean makeup remover refreshing oil free cleansing lotion (and take a breath..).

Its a white cream formulation with a not-unpleasant but could be better whiff to it. Some supermarkets stock it, Boots do but Superdrug (using their website for reference) does not appear to. It sells for around £3.50 and you get 200ml of product.

The 'sell me sell me sell me' blurb on the back is as follows: "A light refreshing texture that effectively removes all types of make-up on face and eyes, even waterproof mascara without leaving any greasy residue or after-feel. Free from dirt and make-up, your skin can breathe and feels fresh and clean. Won't clog pores. Dermatological and Ophthalmologist tested."

Obviously to accompany this you need cotton wool pads. A lot of them. This is my main reason for disliking lotion makeup removers. I used two large pads for my face, one for either eye (tip: rest the pads with lotion for 20-30 seconds as this does dramatically improve your ability to remove mascara) and then two final ones to do an all over final clear up. This was just for a 'normal' face of makeup; I didn't want to try with very heavy eye makeup as I'm sure I'd have used half a cotton field in doing so.

Saying all that, yes it cleared my face of makeup very well, but of course you use quite a bit of lotion and pads in one removal.

Like I said above I never have really liked using them, I much prefer - and some may say this is controversial - to use a wipe or shall we be posh, a lingette, amongst my favourites being the St Ives wipes (when you can get them) and the Johnson's 3 in 1 (I used green pack for oily/combo, also blue for dry/sensitive and pink for normal) wipes. With a good ol' wipe I can get all my eye makeup off even the heavy mascaras and eyeliner and get most the foundation off too.

I was quite pleased then when Neutrogena brought out the wipes in the Deep Clean range, and I got all a tad giddy:

You get 25 wipes in a pack, and these are around £3 per pack. They aren't as soft in texture as the Johnson's wipes and have that same smell as the lotion.

I love them. Love love love. Nice and removing at stuff, easy to use, oo I just love them. And the perfect accompaniment is the lotion, which I use after the wipe with just one cotton pad to remove all the extra tough bits out my pores. I also use it to remove the Revlon Colorstay from the back of my hand - just shows how tough and mean it is as it wipes it away, even when dry with ease.

I am liking this Deep Clean range from Neutrogena and am slowly accumulating the other bits such as the gel wash (which is lush, it's all blue and makes your face feel super clean and fresh and tingly), and an exfoliating scrub which I will try in place of St Ives which everyone knows is the mother of exfoliators. Not even good old sugar and lemon stands up to it in my opinion.

So after an almighty ramble, my verdict is that the lotion is OK, the wipes are fab and together they are immense. Highly recommend for those folks with oily/combination skin as I can say it helps to control it well without drying my skin out.

I'll shut up now! :o)