I’m a facial cotton snob. It wasn’t always this way, but ever since I tried my first package of Shiseido Facial Cotton, I haven’t looked back.  Let me qualify that – I don’t use Shiseido Facial Cotton exclusively – I only use it for removing my eye makeup.  The pillowy softness of this cotton is especially appreciated against the delicate skin around the eyes.  Now when I use non-Shiseido cottons on my eye area, I feel like I’m using sandpaper (I exaggerate, but really, like 80-grit).  For everything else – toner, exfoliants, nail polish removal – I use other cottons.

I was happily shelling out $9 per package for the Shiseido cotton, until one day, about 2 years ago, the Shiseido counter lady informed me that the price was going up soon… to $11 per pack!  That’s a 22% increase!  In my mind, this crossed over some imaginary threshold, and this item became “too expensive”.  I rushed to purchase half a dozen packs of the cotton at the $9 price.  My current stock is still the $9 price, but the supply is dwindling. Then I began to notice that drugstore brands were coming out with their own versions of square facial cottons that look suspiciously similar to the Shiseido cotton packaging:

So I set out to find out if they’re dupes!

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