Many of us are trying to live a more sustainable lifestyle and these little DIY reusable make-up wipes are just what you need to help you achieve that!
I bought some reusable and sustainable make-up wipes from the Festival of Thrift a while ago and loved them but they weren’t something that I could recreate myself as they were basically little crochet circles and I absolutely can’t crochet – despite numerous attempts to teach myself.
I’ve been trying to think of a way to make some reusable make-up wipes for a while and I thought I’d found the solution which was fab, except for the fact that it involved sewing and I’ve forgotten how to thread my sewing machine and managed to lose the instructions somehow too.
So, when lovely Jen asked me if I wanted to go round for a chai latte and some crafting, I knew exactly what I wanted to make! I turned up with an idea and a tea towel and went home with these little beauties…
And yes, I know that they’re not perfectly stitched but it was me at the sewing machine and I seem to be unable to master sewing circles (or sewing at all if we’re being honest). I’m also aware that some of them may not actually be as circular as they should be considering I did, in fact, use a template but again, if I’m being honest, you’re lucky that there’s no blood on any of the finished circles as I somehow managed to cut my hand during the making of these. 😉
They’re not perfect but even so, they’re super pretty and they do exactly what I wanted them to do – wipe off my make-up on a night and hold up to being regularly washed so I can reuse them again and again.
I turned up at Jen’s with a tea towel with the intention of sewing two tea towel circles together to make a pad but lovely Jen listened to my idea and then raided her extensive fabric stash for some lovely organic cotton squares. She suggested that I do one circle in the cotton fabric and one using my tea towel fabric instead and she was totally right.
So, we used a small cup as a template for the circle and cut out what feels like a million circles out of the cotton fabric and an equal amount of circles out of the tea towel. To be fair, poor Jen got to do most of the cutting while I tried to master the sewing machine.
When we made the first pad, we sewed them together with the right sides of the fabric facing inwards, leaving a small gap to poke the fabrics through to turn them the right way round. This was definitely not an easy task but once the fabric was the right way round, we sewed the gap up leaving a lovely (kind of) circular pad.
So that’s the first, and probably the neatest way to make your own DIY reusable make-up wipes but actually, it felt like a complete faff on bearing in mind that the wipes are literally going to sit in a jar on a bathroom window, we decided to streamline the process for the rest of the wipes.
The rest of the pads were made using a much quicker and easier method:
- Take 1 circle of tea towel fabric and one circle of cotton.
- Place them together with the right side outwards.
- Stitch the fabric together around the edge of the circles.
They don’t look as neat but they do the job just as well and literally take less than half the time so I’d absolutely recommend going for the easier method!
And that’s it! Just repeat the above until you have enough to last you a good week or so to make sure you don’t run out between washes. I wash mine weekly – I did have a little fabric bag that I put them in but I lost it so now I put them all in a sock. 😉
I usually use my DIY reusable make-up wipes with some micellar water on a night before bed and they do a fab job so I’ve been able to completely cut out my use of cotton wool pads.
Also, how cute are they in this little basket? I bought a couple of these tiny baskets for about 20p each somewhere ages ago (maybe the Festival of Thrift?) but I’ve not used them too much. I dug them out for this photo and LOVE the way they look. I’m now super tempted to paint the basket and make it a permanent home for my little collection of wipes.
(I hate having to say this but this post was written before lockdown and the need for social distancing – I really miss afternoons like this and will never, ever take things like this for granted again!)
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