Simple Oil Balancing Cleansing Wipes

...wipes I decided on were Simple Oil control Oil Balancing Cleansing Wipes, which I chose because they claim to 'effectively cleanse skin whilst controlling excess oil'. Not only that, but all Simple products are 100% perfume and colour free with no unnecessary additives, and have active ingredients selected to care for the needs of even sensitive skin. As I have both oily and sensitive skin, this all sounded great to me.

The wipes come ...
...on the front has the Simple logo, the name of the product range and product, and briefly details what the wipes are for. The back of the pack details the claims of the product, and direction for use, and has this to say about the product range:
'SIMPLE Oil Control products are proven to actively promote healthy, shine-free skin. They contain Zinc PCA and a natural anti-bacterial agent to help reduce blemishes. Oil-free and non-drying, this ... more

When I started working nights stacking shelves in a supermarket 3 years ago, I had not realised the effect it would have on my skin. It wasn't long before my skin began to feel dirty and the acne I'd suffered with through my school years resurfaced. Nearly everyone tried to tell me that it was working nights that was doing it - it messes up your body-clock which in turn messes up your body. But I'm convinced that my problem was more to do with all the muck and dirt in that place. We handle cases that have been sat in a mucky warehouse, some of them covered in who-knows-what, and then every time we touch our faces we're transferring all that muck to our skin. At the end of every shift I'd go home dying to wash my face as it just felt so dirty. After a while the feeling of my skin every morning just got too much for me to bear and I decided I needed to be washing my face on my breaks, and, not particularly wanting to take my cleanser to work and look a pillock getting it out in the toilets every break time, I decided to buy some facial cleansing wipes.

So, as soon as my next break came round, off I went to the health and beauty section. I hadn't realised there were so many different kinds of facial cleansing wipes, so I ended up reading the packaging of most of them trying to decide which one to buy, and was consequently late back from my break - ooops! The wipes I decided on were Simple Oil control Oil Balancing Cleansing Wipes, which I chose because they claim to 'effectively cleanse skin whilst controlling excess oil'. Not only that, but all Simple products are 100% perfume and colour free with no unnecessary additives, and have active ingredients selected to care for the needs of even sensitive skin. As I have both oily and sensitive skin, this all sounded great to me.

The wipes come in a pack of 25, which cost me £4.29 . The packaging is simply a green plastic pack with a sticker on top, which peels back to reveal a hole through which the wipes are dispensed. The sticker on the front has the Simple logo, the name of the product range and product, and briefly details what the wipes are for. The back of the pack details the claims of the product, and direction for use, and has this to say about the product range:
'SIMPLE Oil Control products are proven to actively promote healthy, shine-free skin. They contain Zinc PCA and a natural anti-bacterial agent to help reduce blemishes. Oil-free and non-drying, this range helps you feel confident with pure, clear skin.'

According to the back of the pack these cleansing wipes effectively remove make-up, cleanse and tone, refresh skin and help to control shine whilst being easy to use, convenient and re-sealable.

The directions for use are rather lengthy considering that all they basically tell you is to open the pack, take out a wipe, wipe it over your face and neck, and reseal the pack. But they do also tell you that the wipes should be binned, not flushed down the toilet, that they are suitable for use before make-up, and that they are not suitable for dry skin. So be warned!

The pack is easy to open, the sticker peels back easily, and the wipes inside are folded so that there's an edge to grab hold of, making them quick and easy to dispense. On opening up the wipes, you can see that they're about 7in (18cm) square, which is an ample size for your face and neck. The only gripe I had with the packaging is that when there are only a few wipes left, the sticker tends not to stick back down properly, which means the wipes are left exposed and can dry out.

The wipes feel damp, but not wet, so there's no worry of dripping product everywhere when you take them out of the pack. As the wipes, like all Simple products, are perfume free, there is no strong scent to the wipes, they simply smell pleasantly fresh. The wipes feel very soft to the touch, and as they are damp rather than wet, they feel lovely against the skin.

When actually using the wipes, I tend to open them out to full size, wipe over my face with one side, then turn it over and wipe my neck with the other side, as I've found that if you try to use the same side to do the entire face and neck the wipe does tend to start to feel rather dry, and it doesn't feel as though it's doing any good.

When I have used the wipes my skin does feel very clean, and definitely less oily. My skin also feels very soft and smooth immediately after use. However, I have noticed that my skin seems more 'open' to oil and dirt after using these, so I find I need to use a moisturiser afterwards to act as a barrier whilst I'm at work, or my skin begins to feel clogged up again almost as soon as I go back onto the shop floor. This kind of defeats the point of using the wipes for me, I bought them for the convenience - if I have to bother standing in the toilets and applying a moisturiser I may as well have just used my normal cleanser in the first place. Also, after a few uses, they seemed to be bringing me out in spots rather than preventing them. I decided to carry on using them to see if this would die down, as I've often found with products that are supposed to help prevent or reduce blemishes, they tend to bring out your spots before settling down and making your skin better. Unfortunately this was not the case with these wipes; I stuck with it for a month and saw no improvement.

Another problem I had with these wipes is that even though they are made for people with sensitive skin, I found that after a few uses they brought me out in an itchy rash around my jaw line. Why is it that products which claim to be suitable for sensitive skin are usually worse for my sensitive skin than anything else!?!

Then of course there's the fact that you only get 25 wipes in a pack, which if used twice a day will only last you 12 and a half days. For £4.29 a pack, I'd want them to last a lot longer than that.

So, all in all, I'm left rather unimpressed with these wipes, and I definitely won't be buying them again again. I'm still sticking with the idea of facial cleansing wipes for the convenience, but I think I'll look for something that contains a moisturiser to act as a barrier for my skin, that doesn't bring me out in a rash, and that doesn't aggravate my spot problem! These wipes may be very good for some people, but they're not right for my oily but sensitive skin.

**** UPDATE****************************************************
I first bought these a couple of years ago for the price of £4.29, but i noticed today that they're now on sale at Tesco for £2.49! A much fairer price for the amount of wipes per pack.
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