Carrie Underwood “can’t live without” Daily Facials. Or so claims Olay, for which the country star is the face of. Personally, I think Olay’s 4-in-1 Daily Facial Cloths look to be the result of industrial espionage gone wrong. Someone at P&G got hold of a prototype for Johnson & Johnson’s J Cloths and somehow they ended up in the beauty product division, instead of household cleaning. Simply put: they are unattractive items that I wouldn’t want to rub my face with.

Supposedly a cleanser, scrub, toner and mask all in one, Olay’s Facial Cloths ($5.99) are far from squeaky clean. The roster of ingredients kicks off with petrolatum. A by-product from oil production, it contains crystalline and liquid hydrocarbons. It needs to be refined in order to remove PHAs, which have been linked to cancer. I’m sure that Olay has, but I still wonder why it’s the dominant ingredient in a cleanser.

The cleansing stuff is provided by Sodium Lauroyl Sarcosinate, an ingredient that also needs refining to rid it of nitrosamine, a carcinogen. The other sudser is cocamidopropyl betaine can cause allergic reactions. PEG-14M, an emulsifier, has 1,4-dioxane, a known carcinogen.

There are a few good things, such as aloe juice, chamomile and grape seed. But they don’t really outweigh the BHT, with its links to cancer, the neurotoxin, phenoxyethanol and a couple of parabens.

Carrie Underwood told Hollywood Life: “I’ve been using the Olay cleansing cloths since I was in college.” Sometimes brand spokespersons have been known to exaggerate their enthusiasm for a product. Let’s hope that’s the case here.

Ingredients: Petrolatum, Glycerin, Cocamidopropyl Betaine, Decyl Glucoside, Sodium Lauroyl Sarcosinate, Butylene Glycol, PEG-14M, Aloe Barbadensis Leaf Juice*, Chamomilla Recutita (Matricaria) Flower Extract**, Tocopheryl Acetate***, Polyquaternium-10, Phenoxyethanol, Panthenol, Benzyl Alcohol, Vitis Vinifera (Grape) Seed Extract, Disodium EDTA, Methylparaben, Propylparaben, Silica, Bht, Sodium Laurate. *Aloe Vera **Chamomile Extract ***Vitamin E Acetate *Aloe Vera **Extrait De Camomille ***Acétate De Vitamine E