Reading Plue’s blog post on Etude House’s Cotton Puffs, it reminded me on something I’d like to share with y’all. And that is on using good facial cotton.

I used to buy my facial cotton and cotton swabs from 2-dollar stores. Hey, why spend so much money on something which you’re going to use for a few seconds, and then throw away, right? It’s only cotton wool, after all. When it came to stuff like this, I was cheap. I’d spend lots of money on makeup, skincare products, but scrimp and save on application apparatus. Cheap makeup wedges, cheap facial cotton, the works. Heck, I even used Tesco Value facial cotton once. Don’t, by the way. It’s crap.

And that was where I learned my lesson.

Cheap facial cotton can easily tear, leave cotton fibres on your face, and are far too thin. When a piece of facial cotton is too thin, it absorbs a lot of liquid thus wetting the whole piece of cotton. When you apply toner with a thin piece of facial cotton, you’d risk applying too much, and it’s a waste.

I absolutely hate it when the cotton fibres stick on my face. It’s like having extra facial hair which I have to tweeze out. Ugh.

Most importantly, cheap facial cotton tend to have tiny balls of rolled up cotton weaved in between the fibres. You might not realise it when you run your fingers on the piece of cotton. However, when you apply toner onto the facial cotton and then to your face, you’d feel tiny scratches as you swipe the cotton on your skin.

I used to buy the cheapest Priceline facial cotton available, and many a time, I’ve scratched my face with the cotton. Once it got so bad, it left a faint red line on my cheek! Now this isn’t good, because this can cause fine lines to prematurely appear on your face with scratchy facial cotton.

The same goes for cotton swabs, especially when you use them to remove your eye makeup. Cheapo cotton swabs with tiny scratchy rolled-up fibre balls in them can scratch your delicate eye area.

I wouldn’t even recommend the cheap and thin facial cotton to remove nail polish either. When you swipe nail polish remover on your nails, the cotton fibres would tear, and you’d need to use another piece of cotton to swipe the other nails. This wastes cotton and nail polish remover. When you use a good piece of facial cotton, you’d only need to use one per hand/foot because the piece of cotton would not tear.

I highly recommend embossed facial cotton, like the ones by Swisspers or The Body Shop. The cotton fibres tend to hold together better, thus reducing tear upon friction. I found that I used less facial cotton when I’m using higher-quality ones.

Unfortunately, good quality facial cotton and cotton swabs are slightly more expensive than generic brands, but at the end of the day, your skin, your pocket and the environment (less waste would be generated from used facial cotton) will thank you for it.