I’ve always had a reaction to commercially made eye make-up removers–they make my eyes burn. As a result, I often avoided eye make-up that would require me to use those make-up removers. Over the years, I finally settled on the lesser of many evils–one that got the job done reasonably well, and was the least burn-y. I figured that’s the best I could do.

I didn’t hit real success until I started mixing my own eye make-up remover. It was a huge success–for the first time I had something that produced zero burning!

The best part is that it takes 5 minutes to make and is far cheaper than the $5 bottles of burn town I was buying before.

Eye Make-Up Remover

• 1 part jojoba oil
• 1 part sweet almond oil
• Splash of rose water

I know some people have had good results with throwing a bit of witch hazel into their oil mixture. In a pinch, I’ve also used straight olive oil.

If I have really heavy eye make-up on, I’ll loosen it up with micellar water first and then swipe this on next. No lie, sometimes it does take me a couple applications, but I would much rather use this than the burning, expensive junk I was buying before.

To top it off, I stopped buying one use cotton rounds, and got some reusable fabric cotton ones instead.

You need to be careful with fabric rags that are soaked in oil, as spontaneous combustion can happen. Always be careful and follow safety guidelines.

In total, between the glass bottle ($1.99), the reusable cotton fabric rounds ($5.00), the oils I had on hand, it didn’t take much time for me to start saving money on this DIY version.

And that’s the truth of it. This swap has proved like many others for me. The alternative DIY version ended up being more environmentally friendly, cheaper, and better for me as a chemically reactive person.