Every time I remove my make up with a cotton wool pad I feel guilty about how un-environmentally friendly I am being. I decided to make my own reusable makeup remover pads at the weekend.

Choosing the fabric

I started by checking out how other people had made similar make up remover pads. I wondered if there was a particular type of fabric I should use. You can find some examples on my Eco crafts Pinterest board. I realised that pretty much anything seems to go. I found examples of bamboo, linen, cotton, flannel, microfleece and towelling being used.

For a while I wondered about taking a trip out to buy some new fabric. I realised that wasn’t really what this process should be about.

My craft room is packed with boxes of felt and fabric of all kinds. Some I buy, some I have inherited from other crafters and some are old clothes or other household textiles that are no longer used but I keep ‘just in case’.

Recycle & reuse

If I was going to improve my impact on the environment by no longer using single use cotton pads then surely I should be reusing fabrics I already possess rather than driving several miles to purchase new fabrics.

Having dug through some of my supplies I came up with a random selection of fabrics. A collection of old clothes, a towel, and some sewing fabrics.

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Making the makeup remover pads

I decided to use different combinations of fabrics to see which ones I liked.

To begin with I picked two – the towelling fabric and a microfleece – and cut four 10cm squares of each. Between them, these would form one side of each pad. I then cut 8 other 10cm squares from the other fabrics. These included some soft jersey fabrics from old children’s clothes. A thick cotton sewing fabric and a old cotton shirt.

I used two fabrics and placed them right sides together, pinning in place. Then I sewed around 3 sides using a simple running stitch, and around the edges of the fourth side, leaving a gap to turn it right sides out. I used a sewing machine for speed but you could do this by hand.

Once I had sewn them, I trimmed the edges down and cut off the extra fabric on the corners at an angle. Trimming reduces the amount of bulk once they are turned the right way around.

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Next step was to turn them to the right sides, gently pushing the fabric through the gap in the stitching. At this stage it is important to make sure the corners are pushed through.

I then tucked in the edges of the unstitched edge and top stitched all the way round the edge. As I was making these for myself I decided to have fun at this stage with different decorative stitches on my machine. However I discovered that a simple straight stitch is by far the easiest and the neatest final finish.

The finished pads

That was all there was to it. A really simple and cheap way to make my own reusable makeup remover pads. I didn’t work particularly hard to ensure that my fabrics were cut to exactly 10cm. I didn’t try too hard to ensure that every line of stitching was perfectly straight. These are, after all, for taking off my make up. Each makeup remover pad was made in less than 5 minutes so it didn’t take long to build a weeks worth.

Last night I tried one for the first time and can report it was successful! I like the fact that this size is larger than a standard cotton pad so one is more than big enough to remove all my make up without feeling like Im just redistributing it around my face. I found the two sides were good so there was a choice of texture. The towelling worked well generally but I liked the softer jersey for my eyes.

When they are finished with I can simply throw them in the wash and resuse them. If any of them don’t work or I don’t like the feel of them I can repurpose them. They could become nail varnish remover pads, or even some form of household cleaning cloth.