While they are super convenient, there are some serious down sides to using wet wipes as a professional face painter. I used wet wipes for many years, but here are some of the many reasons why I stopped using them for cleaning faces altogether.
4. It’s Wasteful
Image By artmind-etcetera/blogspot
Usually when I used wet wipes to clean a childs face before face painting, I really didn’t need the entire cloth. Most of the time it was a little food on the side of the mouth, or some boogers, and you don’t really use the entire cloth. But you can’t reuse that on someone else! Eww gross! So you have no choice but to toss it. What a waste. On top of that wet wipes are not that cheap.
At the rate I was using them for just tiny clean ups, I was going through whole packs before I knew what hit me. But in the end I would rather paint on a clean face then have mustard bits end up in my even more pricey paints.
3. They Push The Color Into Your Pores
Image by Mat McDermott/Flickr
The oils in the wipes that keep them moist are also a great product for setting your pigments. Basically part of the wipe takes off the color and the other part works to embed the color in your skin. It actually pushes the color deeper into your pores and then seals it nicely. This happens mostly with reds, greens and purples, but has been known to happen with almost all the colors. I hope the mom liked that face paint you did enough for Jr. to wear it to church tomorrow.
Image Copyright: The Dark Night
“You wanna know how I got these stains?”
So this makes them terrible for touch-ups too, or ‘do overs’. On the back of my business cards there are care and removal instructions, and it specifically says. “Don’t use wet wipes”.
2. Because: Science!
Image By moonstuck/deviantart
When ever I cleaned a face around the mouth, nose (or where ever) with wet wipes I noticed that my paint had trouble bonding and blending when I tried to apply it. Every time I would struggle with the whiskers/nose of a tiger, or the lipstick of a princess and so on. Finally I put 2 and 2 together and realized that it was always around the area I ‘cleaned’ with the wipes where I was having trouble, and it was the OILS in the wet wipes causing this!
“This child’s toy is trying to tell me something…”
I was basically smearing an oil sheen over the area I was going to paint! To make matters worse is that my face paint (like many others) is WATER activated! First lesson in science class: Oil and Water DON’T mix.
“Duh!” I thought to myself. As I had been doing this for years! When I switched to my new method (listed at the end of this article), holy smokes did everything sure improve! No more struggling to get the paint to stick and blend; which also meant I could work faster.
1. They Are Crazy Bad For The Skin
Hard to believe right? I mean here is a product that you would think is actually made for the skin, heck even most of the makeup industry makes wipes for removing makeup. It should have benefits to the skin or at least be safe to use, right? Turns out, not so much.
By their very nature facial wipes have to be soaked in some pretty potent chemicals to avoid being breeding grounds for bacteria. These moist cloths sit in containers on shelves for up to 18 months on a warm factory floor, and because of this they require high levels of preservatives, namely alcohol and anti-bacterial agents to keep them usable by the time they ship out to the local supermarket. Then you buy them and rub the harsh chemicals vigorously into the skin, particularly around some pretty delicate areas.
Image by BeautyLish,
“But it burns so good!”
Particular ingredients to watch out for are:
– Propylene Glycol and Dipropylene Glycol (irritants)
– 2-Bromo-2-Nitropropane-1, 3-Dio (potent anti-microbial agent that carries the highest hazard rating, 8-10, on the Skin Deep Ingredients database. Read more here).
Now before you start calling me an over paranoid hippie, consider that by it’s nature alcohol used topically will dry out your skin. Also when I was in makeup school one of the best teachers there, Fay Von Schroeder, was totally horrified that any one would be using these on their face. This woman is a vast tome of knowledge about all things makeup and skin related, and I was lucky to be taught by her. The horrified look on her face when I used a wet wipe to clean my face after class was enough to make me stop using them while face painting forever.
On top of being irritating to your skin as all hell, the high levels of alcohol can also cause extreme dryness and result premature ageing of the skin. Sources:
Get a little atomizer bottle and put water and a bit of hand/face soap in it. Not dish soap, not body wash, just plain Jane soap. The less fancy the better, because you don’t want to trigger any possible allergies in your clients, from added fragrances, or soaps that are made for washing dishes are not the best for this job. I use scrapings from Dove or Ivory soap because it’s they are the gentlest on skin and don’t leave an oily residue. The plainer the soap the better. I mix them with the water and they dissolve make my soapy water which I spray on to the paper towel.
As for the paper towel I use a double ply brand that has the ‘select a size’ sheets (I use Bounty Select-a-Size). I then cut those sheets into 3 squares. Roughly something like this.
“Remember it has to be exact down to the milometer or it won’t work, and
the world will explode.”
I cut them to this size because this is really all you need most of the time to spot clean a face, I then put them in a Tupperware style container I bought at the dollar store, and that’s it! Even the Spray bottle fits in the container. If you feel the need you can also spray another sheet with just water to remove any soap residue you may have left behind. I also carry q-tips in my kit and can use the soap/water on them to easily remove tiny mistakes, and make little touch-ups.Lets break it down. This solution is:
– Less expensive – Safer for the skin – Better for removing face paint – Easier to paint over after cleaning – Saves Space – Better for correcting mistakes – Creates less waste – More environmentally friendly
This is just WIN all around.Now this doesn’t mean that I have banished wet wipes from my face painting kit all together, just that I have found a better use for them which no longer involves cleaning faces with them.Now I buy the small ‘travel pack’ style wet wipes to keep in my kit and use them only to clean my kit and tools instead. Again you should never clean your actual face paint cakes with wet wipes, (oil and water remember), but these can be great for cleaning the cases! I use these in between clients to clean up any paint that got on the foam inserts of my cases, handles of my paint brushes, droplets on my water containers, or other containers, get excess paint off my hands etc. The beauty of it is that it’s more like a cloth so it’s more durable then taper towel for this job, and the oils and alcohol in the wipes double up as partially sanitizing surfaces and making them easier to clean later because of the oils transferred to the surfaces of the containers. So it’s great for a quick tidy before you deep clean your kit after a gig.
I agree, I used to work for someone who required us to use baby wipes. It was difficult to paint over the parts of the face which I had used the baby wipes, they left an oily residue. They are also very very expensive and I went through at least one pack of them per job.
I agree, I used to work for someone who required us to use baby wipes. It was difficult to paint over the parts of the face which I had used the baby wipes, they left an oily residue. They are also very very expensive and I went through at least one pack of them per job.