Now that we’ve seen what Balea had to offer in terms ofmakeup removers for sensitive skin, let’s check out another one, this time the
Biobaza Beauty All Skin Types Cleansing Gel!
I tend to trust Biobaza, they always make products that
should be suitable for sensitive skin, without parabens, synthetic perfumes, silicone
and such. And they’re a Croatian company, local, so that always skews me
towards trusting them more, for whatever reason. After a looot of searching
(thanks Nivea for discontinuing that perfect oil cleanser!), I found two that
might be good for my hella sensitive skin, one of which was this Biobaza one. The
chamomile, zinc and lactic acid sound good! It should calm down my irritated
skin and lead to fewer breakouts in the long term. That would be great, you
know, to finally have a makeup remover that, at the same time, soothes my skin.
So, can it be a decent replacement for the remover oil? Let’s see!
Packaging: pale blue plastic bottle. The colour is really
soothing! But the white text is hard to read on such a light colour. I know
that white text fits it better, but you should really prioritise legibility. It’s
a very simple design, butbit doesn’t need to be super complex or detailed. I
like its simplicity. The cap has a press to close mechanism on top, which works
flawlessly. It’s easy to press it both ways, either to open it or to close it. Also, I just noticed this, there are white leaves on the bottle! They're really faint and hard to make out on the light blue background, which is a shame because they really are pretty!
Ingredients: lactic acid, lysine HCl, German chamomile
(Chamomilla recutita/Matricaria chamomilla) flower extract, zinc oxide, olive
oil (as PEG-10 olive glycerides) for nourishment. No parabens. This certainly
sounds promising for oily skin! Zinc should contribute to fewer breakouts in
the future, while chamomile should calm down the skin. The scent is quite
honestly not good at all, but what should you expect if there are no perfumes?
Obviously it’s most likely going to smell like the ingredients, which means a
bitter, soapy, chemical scent. It also smells greasy. I guess that’s better for
sensitive skin than synthetic perfumes. The expiration date is marked both as
PAO (12 months after opening) and as a concrete date (which was already half
erased by the time I bought the gel, so I have no idea if it has gone off).
Colourless fluid. The formula is super thin and watery. It’s
almost like baby oil. I really don’t know how you could ever call this ‘gel’, aren’t
gels supposed to be, you know, gelly? This is really watery. I really don’t
like it; I’d prefer a more gelly formula, if it’s supposed to be a gel in the
first place. And because it’s so watery I think I always end up using too much.
I don’t like to be wasteful, but with this kind of formula it’s hard not to be.
This ‘gel’ feels super soapy and greasy on the skin. It’s
not as heavy as it could be, tbh, but it still feels uncomfortably occlusive
and just unpleasant on the skin. It really feels like there is a greasy film
over my skin. Oh, and, don’t let it get inside your mouth, it’s got that disgusting soapy flavour that is way
too salty and chemical.
Its primary purpose is to remove makeup and clean the skin,
which it does phenomenally! It really caught me off guard when I saw how makeup
dissolves in literal seconds! I don’t even need to rub a lot to fully remove
makeup! Foundation is gone in seconds, which is awesome! It removes other
hard-to-remove makeup with ease, too: mascara, eyeliners, hell, even liquid
lipsticks (such as the notoriously difficult to remove Maybelline Superstay
Matte Ink) don’t pose a problem for this cleansing gel. However, and this is
very bad, despite claiming to be appropriate for face & eyes, that is not
at all true on my case. I bought it because it also safe for eyes! The first
time I used it and it got into my eyes, I started crying in pain that “it’s
supposed to be safe for the eyes!!!”. See, it causes severe stinging and even
burning if it gets inside the eyes, which it probably will if you use it to
remove mascara. The burning is horrible; you really should’ve seen (or heard)
my shock when it started burning my eyes. So, out of the two areas it ‘safe’
for, one half causes disastrous reactions. It also does worse stuff, but I’ll
get to that in a minute. Like, I am glad that it can remove makeup in seconds,
and thoroughly at that, but I need to be able to use it on my eyes, goddammit!
Especially if it is marketed as being safe for the eyes!
It’s, thankfully, very easily removed, even from the eyes,
so the burning won’t last too long. You don’t even need a whole lot of water. It
doesn’t leave a soapy feeling or residue, no matter how soapy it may have felt while
using it.
Unfortunately, this cleansing gel, even though it is
marketed for sensitive skin, doesn’t seem to suit me too well. My skin feels
slightly dried out after I dry it with a towel, which shouldn’t happen. It
should be nice and soft. Were it only that! Much worse is what happens to my
eyes after washing off the gel. My eyes and especially eyelashes feel very dry
and dried out. It’s such an uncomfortable feeling and annoying, too! Especially
because my eyes already tend to become scratchy and dry on their own, for no
reason! So now, every time I remove my makeup in the evening, I am forced to
put up with horribly dried out eyes and eyelashes that feel so uncomfortable
that I cannot stop poking at them the rest of the evening/night. It feels like
there is something in my eye, which is just the dryness manifesting itself.
I
have no idea what the hell is wrong with my eyes, but this is not the first
makeup remover “safe for eyes” that causes intense adverse reactions in my
eyes. Like, I love how well it removes makeup but what it does to my eyes is
simply impossible to tolerate.
Biobaza claim that this gel cleanses sensitive skin, soothes
redness and pimples, contributes to a better appearance of acne-prone skin, and
balances sebum secretion. They also claim that it has a pleasant texture. Well,
not all of it is false, but a good deal is. It is suitable for sensitive skin
as it does not cause any reactions or breakouts, but everything else is
questionable, at best. My skin looks and feels much more dried out rather than
soothed and balanced. It’s not at all as soft as with the Nivea Rose Touch Wash
Gel. It’s not horribly dried out, don’t get me wrong, but it’s just not as soft
as I’d like it to be. What is horribly dried out, however, is my eyes. My eyes
feel irritated and dry and scratchy and like there’s something stuck in them
after washing them with this gel. It’s terrible, because I already have to deal
with such problematic eyes just from how they are; I really don’t want to have
to put up with it every time I remove makeup. And it’s such a shame that this
happens, because the cleansing gel removes makeup in seconds. This is the
second time now that a makeup remover marketed for skin and eyes
ends up irritating my eyes to no end. Great. I would really love to
continue using it, but I really dislike the way too watery formula (gel, huh?
Sure...), which I always use too much of because it is next to impossible to
squeeze a small amount out, and I don’t really like how my skin isn’t too soft
after rinsing off the gel. I am also not too sure it really does soothe the
skin over time, as I haven’t noticed a reduction in acne, and I only use this
to remove makeup. The biggest thing stopping from liking this gel is, of
course, the hell is causes my eyes to go through every time I remove makeup
from them. I would give it an even lower rating based on my personal experience
with it, although I realise that I might just have really messed up eyes, so it
might not react like this for everyone. And I don’t want to give it too low of
a score because it really removes makeup exceptionally well! I am torn. Well,
in any case, I will definitely not be giving this ‘gel’ any recommendations. My
search for a face & eye makeup remover continues...
Rating: 6/10
Would buy again? NO
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