The Best Men’s Face Wipes for Cleaning on the Go

Venturing into the outside world exposes our faces to a host of dirt, smog, and other small debris. And while shower and face washes can rid one’s face of this grime, taking a quick shower sometimes isn’t an option. In these situations, face wipes can be a fantastic alternative, offering a travel-friendly means of looking and feeling your freshest while on the go. To help shine a light on some of the more premium products in this space, we’ve thoroughly combed through the segment to bring you this condensed guide to the best face wipes for men.

Why should you use face wipes?

Though on the surface, these may look like nothing more than a moist towelette with masculine branding, the reality is that many modern face wipes are scientifically engineered to cleanse the skin on our faces of the day’s dirt and grime, without removing or mitigating the production of natural oils skin requires to stay healthy. Furthermore, there are also various specialty face wipes that are specifically designed for post-gym use, after-shave applications, and “replacement showers,” just to name a few.

What to look for

Ingredients: Natural stuff like menthol, aloe, and other plant-derived ingredients are best as they clean and moisturize your skin without harming its natural barrier. Similar to other facial care products, it’s best to avoid parabens, sulfates, and artificial fragrances.

Count: More often than not, you’ll be using your face wipes on the go, but how long you plan on being away from home will determine how many wipes you need. For situations like long drives or camping trips, a large pack of wipes can be helpful (especially if you’re with other people), although a bit cumbersome. But if you’re just headed to the gym or want a more manageable size, something smaller (or a pack that comes with individually wrapped wipes) can be more convenient.

Burts Bees Facial Cleansing Towelettes

The Starter Pick: Founded in 1984, Burt’s Bees eventually achieved mainstream success thanks to the Maine-based brand’s natural yet effective grooming products, and while Burt’s is best known for its chapstick, the company makes a wide range of equally top-notch and largely organic offerings, such as its facial cleansing wipes. Offered in packs of 30, these 6.9” x 7.4” facial wipes are pre-moistened with an advanced formula containing raspberry and pink grapefruit seed oils, willow bark, beetroot, and sugar cane extracts, as well as fruit extracts from watermelon, lentil, lemon, orange, and apple. Lightly infused with a scent of pink grapefruit, these wipes are able to rid facial skin of sweat and dirt—as well as makeup—without stripping the face’s natural oils or leaving behind a heavy residue. By using these wipes directly after working out, they’re able to largely mitigate the presence and/or growth of acne. And, in addition to being sold in a variety of other scents, the Burt’s Bees website also offers a (slightly discounted) regular monthly subscription option where packs can automatically be sent to your door.

Oars + Alps Cooling + Cleansing Wipes

The Best Gym Wipes: Our skin takes in and absorbs the chemicals and products we use on it and, just like with the food we eat, it can have a pretty profound impact on our overall health and wellbeing. And this, in a nutshell, is essentially the ethos driving the folks over at Oar + Alps, which uses a combination of natural ingredients to deliver highly-effective products. The grooming brand’s Cooling + Cleansing Wipes maintain Oar + Alps’ usual MO, with an advanced formula containing soothing and anti-inflammatory caffeine, energizing menthol, green tea leaf extract, glycerin, ginseng root extract, ultra-hydrating corn-derived Propanediol, antioxidant-rich apple fruit extract, cucumber extract, and chamomile, naturally antimicrobial, antiseptic, and antibacterial Aloe Barbadensis leaf juice (and extract), and a sugar-based cleansing agent that cleans the skin without removing natural oils. Sold in packs of 14 individually-wrapped wipes, each 8” x 10” sheet features one textured “Arctic Blue Ice Crystal” side meant to cleanse and exfoliate the skin while the other blank side offers a cooling menthol and caffeine-rich formula. Dermatologist-tested and cruelty-free, these wipes can be used all over the body and are safe for all skin types, too.

Blaq Cleanse and Exfoliate AHA Wipes

The Best Charcoal Wipes: Another high-end wipe featuring a dual-sided, dual-formula configuration, BLAQ’s Cleanse & Exfoliate AHA Wipes employ a powerful liquid that is charcoal-activated and utilizes alpha-hydroxy acids to thoroughly cleanse the user’s skin. One side contains glycolic acid to exfoliate the skin, while the other is charcoal activated in order to fully cleanse the face. When used together, these wipes are able to effectively draw contaminants and impurities from the skin and pores. On top of being able to remove surface-level makeup, sweat, dust, and other grime we’re exposed to on a day-to-day basis, these cruelty-free wipes are also enormously effective at eliminating dead skin cells, thereby exposing brighter, newly-generated skin cells, resulting in healthier-looking and feeling skin. Other additives such as aloe vera extract, vitamin A, vitamin E, glycerin, and citric and glycolic acids are added to help further enhance the health and appearance of the skin. This advanced two-stage wipe stands as a great alternative to a daily skin care regimen, especially when traveling or on the go, and it contains a subtle yet attractive light fragrance. In the company’s typical fashion, these wipes are also colored black, further distinguishing them from other men’s towelettes on the market.

Duke Cannon Supply Co. Cold Shower Field Towels

The Best Cooling Wipes: Duke Cannon Supply Company makes high-quality grooming essentials right here in the USA, with pride for not just the products, but for the country the label operates in. They’re made for the farmers, the teachers, the everyday Americans that get up every day and work hard. And since the brand is rooted in military history, with many products inspired by those used by active duty soldiers, Duke Cannon donates a portion of its profits to organizations that support veterans. So you can trust that the label’s Cold Shower Field Towels are built to handle the toughest cleans, made with a cooling blend of menthol, aloe, and jojoba to keep your skin hydrated and fresh. These 7″ x 9″ wipes are uniquely textured to provide a more thorough clean, and were developed alongside Duke Cannon’s military advisory panel, making them certifiably tough. So whether you’re getting back from a mission, or just from the gym, you can capture the feeling and cleanliness of a cold shower, without having to actually take one.

Anthony Glycolic Exfoliating and Resurfacing Wipes

The Best Exfoliating Wipes: Modern breakthroughs in the worlds of science, chemistry, and cosmetics have more and more been giving way to products that are gentle and safe on the skin while still managing to be highly effective at washing away dirt and grime. The Anthony brand’s Glycolic Exfoliating and Resurfacing Wipes are a wonderful example of a product benefitting from said breakthroughs, calling on a glycolic-rich formula that’s naturally derived from sugarcane. Boasting dual-sided properties, these wipes contain a complexion-refining formula that also works wonders at reducing the appearance and presence of wrinkles and hyperpigmentation, while also minimizing the size of pores. There’s also invigorating ginseng and menthol, soothing aloe vera, and vitamin E to help shield skin from dirt, dust, debris, and other external environmental aggressors that can wreak havoc on a face’s skin and complexion. Just like with the previous entry, Anthony’s wipes also use Glycolic Acid to clear away dead skin cells, allowing new cells to come to the surface for overall healthier skin. USA-made, Anthony’s wipes are also cruelty-free, allergy and dermatologist tested, as well as completely devoid of any and all parabens, phthalates, GMOs, triclosan, and gluten.

Ursa Major Essential Face Wipes

The Best Natural Wipes: Over the years, a lot of grooming brands known for using organic and natural ingredients have developed—and at times deserved—a reputation for gentle but less-than-effective products. This reality, however, is quickly changing thanks to companies like Ursa Major which have proven that quality grooming goods don’t have to come at the cost of environmental sustainability or utilize a host of harsh chemicals to properly do their job. Perfectly encapsulated by Ursa Major’s Essential Face Wipes, these on-the-go cleaning tools are made from sustainably-sourced bamboo, each comes individually wrapped, and—like the packaging they come in— the wipes are 100% biodegradable. A combination of alpha-hydroxy acids, aloe vera, conditioning willow bark, vitamin E, sugar maple extract, and toning birch sap afford these award-winning wipes the ability to clean, hydrate, exfoliate, and soothe. Not containing any parabens, petrochemicals, sulfates, synthetic fragrances, artificial colors, glycols, or silicones, these wipes are also cruelty-free and vegan-friendly. The highly effective and potent nature of these all-natural wipes, coupled with each being individually wrapped, makes them ideal for everything from post-gym use to freshening up before date night or after a long flight.

Fulton and Roark Aftershave Cloths

The Best Aftershave Wipes: Shaving your face can admittedly feel like a bit of a chore, though with the right products on hand, the task can be turned into a markedly more enjoyable experience. Fulton & Roark’s Aftershave Cloths are very much one of those products, reducing razor burn, and leaving skin feeling cool, refreshed, reinvigorated, and boasting a rich scent. The quilt-patterned towelettes are moistened using a liquid formulated with witch hazel, tea tree, bergamot, eucalyptus, and sage, along with smaller amounts of peppermint oil, glycerin, tarragon oil, grapefruit seed, and other citrus oils. User reviews for these Aftershave Cloths have been overwhelmingly glowing, with 87% of reviews rated at five out of five stars—a direct reflection of the overall quality of this product, and Fulton & Roark’s offerings in general. The company also offers regular shipments of its Aftershave Cloths in the form of a monthly subscription service where the 30-packs of individually-wrapped facial wipes are available at a 10% discount. The only real downside to these cloths is that, after using them, it’s genuinely hard to go back to shaving without them, though that again just speaks to the inherent quality of the product.

The Best Face Wash for A Clean Face

While face wipes can do the trick in a pinch, you may want something more preventative. Like a pick from our best face wash guide.