Bloggerel: random thoughts on a dry eye journey

Serendipity and eye makeup removal

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by
Terri
, 03-Dec-2011 at 08:07 (1469 Views)
This post was originally about the joy of having discovered olive oil for removing eye makeup. When I first started using it, I found the olive oil (besides taking off my eye makeup brilliantly) increased the moisture in my eyes during the day because it appeared to partially, or completely, block the tear duct in the inner corner of the eye, similar to the effect of a punctal plug.

Unfortunately, after a few weeks of using it, my eyes became progressively drier during the daytime, requiring extensive use of artificial tears and goggles to try to mitigate the problem. I suspect that the olive oil started interfering with tear production or distribution on the surface of the eye, even though I tried to rinse my eyes with sterilized saline after using it to remove any excess.

I discontinued the olive oil and started using a gentle, rinse-off cleanser to clean my face and remove eye makeup. Within a couple of days, my eyes are returning to normal and I am feeling significantly better. (I am making all my own haircare and skincare products these days, which is great fun. This recipe I am using is the Sunflower Cleansing Cream in "The Complete Idiot's Guide to Making Natural Beauty Products," and it works really well.)

Updated 28-Feb-2012 at 07:32 by Terri (Better information)

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Comments

  1. abbygirl's Avatar
    Terri,
    Do you think the use of the olive oil to remove eye make-up would be OK for someone who has Blepharitis?? I need to really get my mascara off and am currently using Cetaphil for sensitive skin. I don't feel like it completely removes my make-up. I like the olive oil idea and am just afrain it might clog my glands...
  2. Terri's Avatar
    I haven't had to deal with blepharitis, so I don't have a good answer. Olive oil is a great cleanser, but it can be occlusive. It might be possible to use olive oil to do the first round of makeup removal and then follow it with Cetaphil to remove remaining traces of olive oil. My usual routine is a gentle cleanser first (which starts the eye makeup removal process and softens mascara), followed by olive oil applied with a cotton ball to remove the rest of the eye makeup. I then use a toner for dry skin that removes remaining traces of olive oil although, as I noted in the post, I don't worry about a tiny amount remaining on my skin. You might want to remove all of it with a gentle toner or cleanser as the step following the olive oil.