A shock-horror announcement: I’m not that enamoured with Shu Uemura’s cleansing oils. I know that they’re a favourite amongst celebrities and makeup artists, blah blah, and that they have a ‘cult’ following, but personally I have never got on that well with them. And I have tried just about every single variation that Shu produce. I can’t put my finger on the exact reason for not adoring them, but it could be that they’re quite liquidy, or it could be that I am mentally scarred because I tried to use Shu’s oil (as well as DHC’s) to remove my eyelash extensions last year. Which ended up in absolute carnage, as you may remember. (Read about the lash extension nightmare here).

So imagine my delight when I discovered that Shu Uemura had a gel version of their oil cleanser? It’s really quite lovely. I have tried it on both heavy duty makeup (which does tend to spread about a bit in a scary manner, so you may have to cleanse twice) and light daytime makeup, and both times my skin has emerged fresh and sparkly clean. I use it on dry skin using dry hands, really massaging the gel into the skin – because it’s ‘oil in gel’ you can get a really good massaging action going. It rinses off easily enough, but I tried with a muslin cloth too. The muslin cloth is perhaps a little unnecessary, and if you want a really refreshing cleanse I’d say to splash the gel off with cool water. Nice!

Shu Uemura Gentle Oil-in-Gel Cleanser is £25 (with free delivery until 21/10/11, enter code ‘SHIPME’) at Space NK Online