Are Makeup Remover Wipes Safe? What Kenvue Found in a Neutrogena Lot (2026)
The short answer
In September 2025, the company that makes Neutrogena pulled a batch of its makeup wipes off the shelf.
The reason was bacteria. Their own testing found a germ growing inside the wipes.
Read that again. Not on your face. In the wipe you were using to clean your face.
What this guide answers
What else in your bathroom is not what the front of the pack says?
The free 3 minute scan goes room by room. It tells you what to deal with first. No cost, no call.
Take the free home scanWhat exactly got recalled?
Quick answer: one lot of the soft blue makeup wipes. About 1,312 cases of them.
You know the pouch. Soft blue. A little flap on top.
It sits on the nightstand. You reach for it half asleep.
In September 2025 the maker put out a recall.
Kenvue, the company behind Neutrogena, pulled its Makeup Remover Ultra-Soft Cleansing Towelettes. The 50-count packs, sold 25 to a case.
One lot. The code is 1835U6325A. About 1,312 cases.
Here is where they went. Texas, South Carolina, Georgia and Florida.
The reason, in the recall's own words, is that the wipes tested positive for a bacteria.
What was growing in the wipe?
Quick answer: a germ that lives in water and shrugs off the stuff meant to stop it.
The germ has a long name. Pluralibacter gergoviae. Say it how you like.
It lives in water and soil. And it keeps turning up in beauty products.
Here is the part that matters. Researchers found this germ can live through the preservatives meant to keep wipes clean.
So the very thing meant to keep a wipe safe does not always stop it.
What can it do? The research lists lung, bladder and eye infections. In the worst cases, a blood infection. Mostly in people already worn down.
Now think about a makeup wipe. You drag it across your eyes. Your lips. A spot that has broken open.
Why did the preservative not stop it?
Quick answer: because this germ learned to live through the preservative.
Nobody explains this bit, so here it is.
A wipe is mostly water. Water grows things. So makers add preservatives to hold the germs back.
But this germ is known to shrug off parabens and other common preservatives.
So the pack was preserved the normal way. The germ did not care.
| What happened | The concern | Named authority and date | What it does NOT mean |
|---|---|---|---|
| One lot of makeup wipes recalled | Tested positive for a bacteria | Kenvue and the FDA, September 2025 | Only lot 1835U6325A was named |
| The germ was Pluralibacter gergoviae | It resists common preservatives | Peer-reviewed research | Most healthy people fight it off |
| Sold in four states | Texas, South Carolina, Georgia, Florida | The recall notice itself | Not every pack on every shelf |
| Classed as a Class II recall | Harm expected to be temporary | US FDA, 3 October 2025 | Not the most serious class of recall |
| Injuries reported | The company says none | Neutrogena, at the time of the recall | Nobody was known to be hurt. I will say so |
The case against my own story
Quick answer: three fair points cut against me, and they are all true.
Here are the strongest points on the other side.
One. The FDA called this a Class II recall. That means any harm is expected to be temporary or reversible, not the worst kind.
Two. No illnesses were reported. Neutrogena says it has had none.
Three. It was one lot, and they found it themselves and pulled it. That is a company doing the right thing. I will not pretend it is not.
So why does it still sit wrong with me?
Because of what a wipe is. You reach for it tired, at night, and you trust it to clean your face.
For that batch, the wipe was the dirtiest thing you touched all day.
And nothing on the front told you.
What do I use instead?
Quick answer: water, a real cleanser, and a manufacturer who would tell you fast.
Start with the last thing you do at night. That is the one that matters.
You do not need a wet wipe full of water and preservative. You need to actually wash your face.
Warm water and a proper cleanser do more than a wipe ever did. A wipe smears it around. A wash takes it off.
I am not going to send you to flip the pouch over and read the preservative list. The same thing happened with a floor cleaner that grew bacteria. Nothing on that label said germs either.
The label was right. The batch was not.
So the only question left is who made it, and whether they would tell you fast when something went wrong.
That is why my family buys through a private membership store instead. We are the manufacturer. No middleman, no markup. One name on it, and a person who picks up the phone.
Do the small thing first. Tonight, wash your face with water instead of a wipe.
Shannon's Advice
Straight talk from ShannonI do not call them grocery stores. They are poison centers meant to do you and your family harm. It is not just the brands who are doing the harm, it is the stores themselves. They allow these toxic products on their shelves. People are sick and dying. This is a very serious matter. How can we ever trust them again?
We can't trust them. That is where Switch to America comes in. We are a new supply chain, built on family values, trust and affordability.
You do not have to take my word for it. The proof is in my blog posts, the recalls, the lawsuits and the fines, and in the app I built called The Family Home Toxic Scorecard. Also, inside my Switch Circle private community, we talk about real solutions.
Women come to me exhausted, in pain, stressed out, and on a list of prescriptions they never wanted. I have spent over 20 years helping women get off prescription medications. I help families reclaim their health.
We cannot stop them. I have stopped expecting to. However, we can stop walking into their stores. We are linking arms and together taking our control back. Control of our health and our finances.
Start by clicking the link below and taking the SCAN.
The receipts
- US Food and Drug Administration, cosmetics recalls and alerts. Kenvue Brands, LLC issued a voluntary recall on 19 September 2025 of Neutrogena Makeup Remover Ultra-Soft Cleansing Towelettes, 50-count, lot number 1835U6325A, after its own testing found the wipes positive for the bacteria Pluralibacter gergoviae. The recall covered about 1,312 cases distributed in Texas, South Carolina, Georgia and Florida. The FDA classified it as a Class II recall on 3 October 2025, meaning any adverse health effects are expected to be temporary or reversible. The company reported no illnesses.
- "Genomic Insights into Pluralibacter gergoviae," National Library of Medicine (PMC). Pluralibacter gergoviae is an opportunistic pathogen repeatedly isolated from personal care products, with a known resistance to parabens and other preservatives and the potential to cause infection in vulnerable people.
- "Understanding the challenges of non-food industrial product contamination," PMC (National Library of Medicine). Peer-reviewed work on how Gram-negative bacteria such as Pluralibacter gergoviae survive and adapt to preservative systems in cosmetics and personal care products, linking preservative resistance to changes in the bacterial cell membrane.
- US Food and Drug Administration, Microbiological Safety and Cosmetics. Cosmetics are not required to be sterile, and their microbial safety relies on the preservative system. Water-based products such as wipes are the most vulnerable to microbial growth.
Three minutes, room by room
The free scan tells you what to fix first and what to use instead. It is the smallest first step there is.
Take the free home scanWhat else do people ask?
Are Neutrogena makeup wipes safe now? The recall covered one lot, 1835U6325A, made and sold in 2025. That lot is gone. This is a fact about how one batch went wrong, not a warning about a pack bought last week.
How would I have known? By the lot code on the pack. Nothing on the front would tell you a thing.
Do preservatives keep wipes safe? Usually. But this germ is known to resist them, which is how the batch got through in the first place.
Did anybody get sick? The company says it received no reports of illness. I will not claim more than that.
Who do you become?
You become the woman who actually washes her face.
Not because she fears a blue pouch. Because she stopped trusting a wet wipe to do a wash's job.
Water. A real cleanser. A name she can call.
That is the whole change. It took one night.
Keep reading
- Are flushable wipes actually flushable?
- Is your lipstick safe? What ends up on your lips all day
- Is talc in makeup safe? What is in the powder
- Is sunscreen safe? What the benzene recalls found
- Is Fabuloso safe? What was growing inside 4.9 million bottles
- Free: the Is My Home Toxic cheat sheet 40 products, 6 rooms.