Banila Co Clean It Zero Original Cleansing Balm has the best record for dry skin at 17 of 17, with Clinique Take The Day Off Cleansing Balm also free of failures at 11 of 11 on a smaller group, so treat the two as a tie. Drunk Elephant Slaai Butter Cleanser follows at 16 of 17, and Glow Recipe Papaya Sorbet Cleansing Balm has the weakest record here at 17 of 19, which is still a high share. Each record counts just shoppers who said they have dry skin.
Updated . How we count
Share of reviewers who stated an outcome for tightness or dryness. Ranked by the lower bound of a 90% confidence interval, so a product needs both a good share and enough reports to rank high.
Best record Banila Co Clean It Zero Original Cleansing Balm 17 of 17 say it cleaned and left their skin soft and comfortable, not tight See price & reviews on Amazon Shoppers mention a greasy film more often for Drunk Elephant (23% of its reviews) and Glow Recipe (17%) than for Banila Co (7%) or Clinique (7%).
Praise and complaints are the points reviewers repeat most, shown as a share of each product's counted store reviews.
Banila Co
Best for good value
Shoppers call it good value in 20% of its 30 reviews, and 37% say it caused no irritation.
Clinique
Its draw is makeup removal, praised in 57% of its 30 reviews, and 23% say it melts makeup easily, though 10% say it stings their eyes.
Drunk Elephant
Among its 30 reviews, 40% praise how it removes makeup, and 7% complain about the smell.
Glow Recipe
More shoppers with dry skin stated a result for it than for any other balm here, 19 in all. Easy melting comes up in 17% of its 30 reviews.
The 4 products ranked here carry 54,636 reviews at Ulta and Sephora. We searched them for tightness or dryness and read the newest matching reviews, up to 40 per product and store, posted between Apr 2020 and Oct 2026.
A review counts only when the reviewer used the product themselves. We drop reviews written in exchange for a free product or a sweepstakes entry (0 on this page), and products that are no longer sold.
Ulta also shows reviews first posted on brands' own websites. They run much more positive than store reviews of the same products (across 19 products with both, 76% of brand-site reviewers said the product solved the problem, against 55% of Ulta shoppers), so we show them on product cards but never count them.
Because we searched for the problem, people who had it are overrepresented. Compare products with each other rather than reading a share as your own odds.
Skin type, skin tone and age splits use what reviewers chose on Sephora's review form (and age on Ulta's when given). We only show a split when enough reviewers fall on each side.
Amazon buttons appear only on products that most reviewers here say fix the problem (at least 60%, with enough reviews to trust it). Everything else gets no buy link.
An AI model labels each review against a fixed list of points, and we spot-check the labels before publishing. We publish counts, never the reviews themselves.
Banila Co Clean It Zero Original Cleansing Balm has the best record (17 of 17), followed by Clinique Take The Day Off Cleansing Balm (11 of 11), Drunk Elephant Slaai Butter Cleanser (16 of 17) and Glow Recipe Papaya Sorbet Cleansing Balm (17 of 19). The first two had no failures, so their order comes down to group size, and the last two are close.
Not on their own. Each record is about whether the balm cleaned dry skin and left it soft and comfortable, not tight. Makeup removal still draws praise for every balm here, from 33% of Glow Recipe's reviews to 57% of Clinique's.
No. The counts are what shoppers with dry skin said after using each balm, not a test of ingredients or of how skin reacts, so follow the label directions.
Banila Co Clean It Zero Original Cleansing Balm, Clinique Take The Day Off Cleansing Balm, Drunk Elephant Slaai Butter Cleanser and Glow Recipe Papaya Sorbet Cleansing Balm are all sold on Amazon by the brand or Amazon itself, and Banila Co Clean It Zero Original Cleansing Balm is both the leader and the best pick sold on Amazon.
HiveTried earns a commission when you buy through the "See price & reviews on Amazon" buttons. It never changes the ranking: the order comes from buyer reports only, and a product gets an Amazon button only when buyers here say it works.