The Body Shop Camomile Sumptuous Cleansing Butter

I love makeup. It is one of my favorite things...but I hate taking it off. Wipes, swaps, oils, lotions, liquids...uuugh. Stahp. I hate having to use fourteen different things to remove my makeup. I am always on the hunt for the Holy Grail product, and my current favorite is this "sumptuous" Cleansing Butter/Balm stuff from The Body Shop.

Here she is. A giant tin of...semi-solid goo. I know, I know...soo appetizing. Stay with me though. I promise it gets better. I admit that I kinda don't like the packaging, though I have no suggestions on how to make it better. It is a screw on top, and that is just asking for trouble in my house. Maybe a clamshell style package?

Here is the good stuff. It is a solid (for me) and has the viscosity of Crisco. As soon as it hits my hand it begins to melt. It has no scent. At all. Nothing. No floral, no "oil"...nothing. I appreciate that because scented face products are one of my most-hated things on earth. Right up there with crayons in my clothes dryer.

But does it work? Honestly, I dunno how much I care about packaging, scents, etc if the product just sucks. I will put up with a lot of bullshit to get something that is just awesome. Well...this stuff is pretty awesome...and with minimal nonsense!

Here is my face. All the makeup is on my face here. All of it. Waterproof mascara and liner, primers, setting sprays...everything. This makeup was going nowhere. This balm was definitely getting a trial by fire.

Before

so serious

I used my knuckle to scoop a grape sized chunk of balm out of the tin (I use my knuckle for jars because I can't stand getting stuff under my nails. It gives me the willies.) It immediately began to soften, but not run. I rubbed my hands together and began to massage my dry face.

After maybe thirty seconds of massage, this is what I was left with. All foundation and primers had dissolved, and about 80% of my waterproof eye makeup was dislodged. I will say that this will remove lipstick as well, but I didn't want to get lipstick all over my face so I used a tissue to remove the bulk of that before I got started.

If you are new to oils/oil massage/balms:

These can be intimidating if you aren't used to them. The idea of slathering your dry face in something and then rubbing it around seems a bit counter-intuitive when your goal is a clean face. I know. (I wrote a post forever ago that discussed oils and OCM a bit if you are interested in this sort of thing.) The tl;dr of using products like this is to apply them to dry skin and massage them gently with your ring and middle fingers in light circles. Basically, if you want to massage just on the side of "there is no way I am pressing hard enough for this to work". You always want to be gentle with your face. It is your friend. 

You should also be aware that you will get this in your eyeballs. Relax. You won't die, and it won't hurt. It will be a little weird and cloudy, but you'll be fine. You can either flush with eye drops or just blink a bunch. It is just one of those things that will happen. You'll be fine, I swear. (but it you aren't, remember I am not a doctor.)

After

Once I felt like I removed as much as I could via massage, soaked a washcloth with warmish-hot water and began to wipe the oil off gently. Then I patted my face dry and that was that. Because my skin likes oils and is on the dryer side, I didn't wash my face after this...but you might want to. It all depends on how you feel afterwards. 

I definitely feel like it got 100% of my base off. I don't see any eyeliner, but there was a bit of raccoon-eye the next morning from that damnable waterproof mascara. My skin did not get irritated nor aggravated, which is a big deal. I don't react well to a lot of commercially produced "natural" products. Either way, this stuff gets a 9.5/10 from me.

An outtake. The cat suddenly decided to chase her tail. She's 12. What is she doing?

Have you tried this butter, or one like it? Or do you have another product like this that you think I should try? Let me know in the comments below.