Ingredient Spotlight: Aloe Vera

Aloe vera is great for soothing skin, particularly burnt, irritated, or sunburnt skin. Having your own aloe plant is a great idea, because you can use the gel straight from the leaves.

Alternately, you can buy an aloe vera gel. A lot of aloe vera gels don't contain all that high a percentage of aloe vera, but Natural Instinct Aloe Vera Gel contains 98% aloe vera. It is $12 for 125ml. Sukin Aloe Vera Gel is also $12 for 125ml, but I prefer the Natural Instinct gel, because the Sukin one has alcohol in it, which can sting burnt skin.

I have recently been using the Natural Instinct Aloe Vera Gel as an eye makeup remover, and it works quite well. It does sting my eyes a bit, and I do have a bit of trouble with my contacts getting blurry and irritated, but usually rinsing them a bit more thorougly than I would have previously seems to help.

Eye makeup removers

I have to confess, the eye makeup remover that I use is not at all natural. I wear contact lenses, and the only natural eye makeup remover I've found that states it is suitable for contacts lens wearers is Aveda Pure Comfort Eye Makeup Remover, $54 for 125ml, which is too expensive for me. I wear eye makeup every day, so I go through remover pretty fast.

Before I wore contacts I used almond oil, which worked well, although it was...oily, but then you'd expect that, using an oil. It made my eyes a bit blurry, but that was ok, because it would be just before going to bed that I'd take my eye makeup off.

Apart from the Aveda one, the only natural eye makeup removers that I've seen available are Living Nature Eye Makeup Remover, $25 for 100ml, and Viola Organics Eye Makeup Remover, $9.50 for 25ml.

I could maybe try and make my own remover, though I don't know what I'd use. Aloe vera and glycerin, maybe? Any contacts lens wearers who are reading this have any tips?