The 14 Best Cleansing Balms to Melt Away Makeup, Oil, and Dirt

Why It's Worth It: This nourishing cleansing balm is a 2023 Best of Beauty Award winner (and a regular in the Allure Beauty Box), and for good reason. It starts with a smooth, buttery texture and converts into an oil the instant it hits your skin. So you get the powers of both a balm and an oil, with no residue or stubborn makeup left behind.

Editor Tip: This stuff is packed to the gills with hardworking ingredients like peptides and pumpkin seed oil to protect your skin barrier, plus fruit enzymes for gentle exfoliation, and a "purple complex" consisting of antioxidant-rich purple fruit and veggie extracts (like purple carrot, purple cabbage, and blueberry) to fight inflammation.

Key Ingredients: Peptides, fruit enzymes, pumpkin seed oil | Who It's For: Mature skin, dullness, dehydration | Fragrance-Free: No

Why It's Worth It: The Inkey List has been doing skin care right since day one, and its Oat Cleansing Balm is yet another great launch. Formulated with oat kernel oil to keep skin hydrated and 1% colloidal oatmeal to reduce redness, this luxurious formula will never strip your sensitive skin of moisture.

Editor Tip: Feel free to use this as a face mask, too. Slather it on, leave it for 10 minutes while you watch TV, and then rinse it off to reveal smooth, moisturized, and calm skin.

Key Ingredients: Oat kernel oil, colloidal oatmeal, sweet almond oil | Who It's For: Dry and sensitive skin | Fragrance-Free: Yes

Why It's Worth It: The Banila Co. Clean It Zero Cleansing Balm is a K-beauty staple of ours and so popular with skin-care devotees that it's offered in Clarifying, Nourishing, Original, Purifying, and Revitalizing versions to best conform to your skin-care needs. This three-in-one hybrid balm exfoliates, hydrates, and cleanses by removing makeup, dirt, and excess oil in one fell swoop. It also does a fantastic job maintaining the integrity of your skin barrier, thanks to a soothing blend of flower, root, and fruit extracts (like Barbados cherry, safflower, and much more).

Editor Tip: If you're unsure which formula will be most ideal for your skin, you can nab the Clean it Zero Discovery Kit for a mere $7, which features four deluxe-size tubs (Original, Purifying, Nourishing, and Revitalizing) to rotate through.

Key Ingredients: Vitamin C, vitamin E, cherry extract | Who It's For: Dry, normal, and combination skin | Fragrance-Free: No

Why It's Worth It: Contrary to popular belief, those with sensitive skin — especially those who don't tolerate chemical exfoliants as well — can indulge in daily use of skin-care acids. Spiked with gluconolactone, a common type of polyhydroxy acid (or PHA) that exfoliates while not penetrating as deeply as their AHA and BHA cousins, Hanskin's Pore Cleansing Balm PHA is a good fit for all skin types. Even people who experience conditions like eczema or atopic rosacea are good fits since PHAs exfoliate, draw in moisture, and offer comparatively less irritation and photosensitivity.

Editor Tip: Oily skin types will appreciate Hanskin's BHA-targeted Pore Cleansing Balm, which features salicylic acid to banish excess sebum, while people with dry or combination skin should make a beeline for the AHA-specific Pore Cleansing Balm infused with lactic and glycolic acids to sweep away pore-clogging dead skin cells.

Key Ingredients: Gluconolactone, jojoba oil, orange peel oil | Who It's For: All skin types | Fragrance-Free: No

Why It's Worth It: Eadem's Dew Dream Cleansing Balm has a unique, jelly-to-oil texture that'll successfully expel all traces of makeup, dirt, and sunscreen, without stripping your skin. While that might seem like a nearly impossible feat, direct your attention to the ingredient list, and you'll understand.

Editor Tip: Give it up for the soothing duo that is tiger grass (also known as cica) and allantoin, as well as Kalahari melon and moringa, which are rich in fatty acids and pull their weight in terms of unclogging pores and minimizing excess sebum.

Key Ingredients: Cica, allantoin, moringa seed oil, Kalahari melon | Who It's For: Dry, normal, combination, and oily skin types | Fragrance-Free: No

Why It's Worth It: Ringing in at $11, E.L.F.'s Holy Hydration! Makeup Melting Cleansing Balm is one of the most affordable options on this list — but it easily pulls the weight of a cleanser that's three times its price.

Editor Tip: This surprisingly silky balm is packed with hydration-attracting hyaluronic acid, barrier-boosting ceramides, and skin-plumping peptides to leave your complexion feeling utterly refreshed — never stripped — and works well with all skin types, especially drier ones.

Key Ingredients: Hyaluronic acid, peptides, ceramides | Who It's For: Dry skin, normal skin | Fragrance-Free: No

Why It's Worth It: Milk Makeup might be known for its Hydro Grip collection, which includes the Readers' Choice Award-winning Hydro Grip Primer, but the brand has you covered on both ends of the beauty spectrum. Let us explain: While Hydro Grip ensures your makeup stays on all day, products like Hydro Ungrip Makeup Removing Cleansing Balm cuts through the toughest makeup, grime, and SPF to leave you with a clean complexion before you hit the hay.

Editor Tip: Massage into dry skin and watch the blend of blue agave extract, soybean oil, and sunflower oil melt everything away. To replenish moisture, there is hemp-derived cannabis seed extract, hyaluronic acid, and aloe. In other words, this product encapsulates a job well done.

Key Ingredients: Blue agave extract, sunflower oil, aloe, hyaluronic acid, hemp extract | Who It's For: All skin types | Fragrance-Free: No

Why It's Worth It: The combo of sunflower and ginger root oils in this balm-to-oil Farmacy Green Clean Makeup Meltaway Cleansing Balm absolves skin from dirt, oil, and pollution buildup, while papaya extract gently sloughs off dead skin cells. Together, they make one rock solid cleanser. (See what we did there?)

Editor Tip: Farmacy also released a fragrance-free version called Clearly Clean if your skin is susceptible to strong — or any — scents.

Key Ingredients: Moringa seed extract, papaya extract, sunflower seed oil, ginger root oil | Who It's For: Dry skin, normal skin | Fragrance-Free: No

Why It's Worth It: It's not an overstatement to say that the Superberry Dream Cleansing Balm is skin-care sunshine and melts like, yes, a dream into your complexion. You might not always associate "hydration" with cleansing balms, but this one will flip that perception on its head. Youth to the People's juicy, mango-scented formula is infused with moisture-boosting heavyweights like oil-soluble hyaluronic acid (in three molecular weights), jojoba seed oil, prickly pear, and vitamin C-rich moringa seed oil to condition your skin while you cleanse — and long after.

Editor Tip: Since the formula is rather solid compared to other balms, it really encourages you to take your time massaging it in and, as a result, ensuring you sweep away every last bit of makeup, dirt, and sunscreen.

Key Ingredients: Hyaluronic acid, moringa seed oil, prickly pear, jojoba seed oil | Who It's For: All skin types | Fragrance-Free: No

Why It's Worth It: As part of True Botanicals' Calm product family, which is both pregnancy-safe and geared towards soothing sensitive skin, the Ginger Turmeric Cleansing Balm — to no one's surprise — results in pillowy soft skin. Not only does this glowy formula refuse to skimp on intensely moisturizing ingredients like sunflower, jojoba, argan, and cucumber oils (just to name a few), this vegan-friendly balm also employs azelaic and lactic acids to loosen dead, pore-clogging skin cells and kill acne-causing bacteria.

Editor Tip: To top it all off, a calming cocktail of oat, turmeric, and ginger oils soothes redness- and rosacea-prone skin.

Key Ingredients: Oat kernel oil, ginger oil, turmeric oil, jojoba seed oil, azelaic acid, lactic acid | Who It's For: Mature skin, dry skin, combination skin, hyperpigmentation | Fragrance-Free: No

Why It's Worth It: The Drunk Elephant Slaai Makeup-Melting Butter Cleanser is a 2019 Allure Best of Beauty winner for many reasons. Yes, this buttery balm removes makeup in a flash, but its gently resurfacing formula is what makes it really stand out.

Editor Tip: Infused with fruit extracts (blueberry, kiwi, and strawberry) to slough off makeup, dirt, and grime, and a blend of nourishing oils (marula and baobab), your skin will feel baby smooth once you're done double-cleansing. To add an extra level of physical exfoliation, each balm comes with a mini bottle of bamboo powder that you can use once or twice a week.

Key Ingredients: Bamboo powder, marula oil, baobab oil, blueberry extract | Who It's For: Dullness, dehydration, hyperpigmentation | Fragrance-Free: Yes

Why It's Worth It: Made with an impressive cocktail of botanicals like smoothing lavender and chamomile, the Elemis Pro-Collagen Cleansing Balm takes you straight to the spa. Warm a scoop between your palms, massage into your skin, then gently wipe away with a damp cloth.

Editor Tip: Because some of the balm will be left behind, the collagen-boosting and antioxidant-rich blend will have more time to get to work.

Key Ingredients: Elderberry oil, eucalyptus oil, chamomile, shea butter, jojoba oil | Who It's For: Mature skin, dry skin | Fragrance-Free: No