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This is a tissue that will stick with you during a nasty cold. It's plenty soft, but it really shines when repeatedly used. It just won't break down. Read More
This super soft tissue won't chafe your nose, though it will leave tiny shreds behind from repeated use. Read More
You'll be hard-pressed to find a softer tissue. It won't absorb liquid well, but if you're buying a tissue with lotion, that may not be a concern. Read More
This product hits the sweet spot of being not too soft to be fragile and not too strong to be uncomfortable. Read More
Despite "Soothing Aloe" being highlighted as its primary feature, we found these tissues were still scratchy on the skin. Read More
Whether it’s allergies, a cold, or something worse, when you’re standing in a store and staring at all those colorful boxes wondering which to buy, chances are, you won’t go wrong. Most tissues do what they’re made to do. But as anyone can tell you who’s grabbed a tissue on their way out of a doctor’s office, or from a box on a random office desk, sometimes the mass-produced supply-store tissues can be a bit weak or scratchy.
A tissue’s job is to help you blow your nose and keep the germs at bay. It should be soothing, but it also needs to be durable, so it doesn’t disintegrate if you have to use it again or accidentally leave it crumpled in a coat pocket only to find it the following winter. It needs to effectively wipe away all that unpleasantness from your nose while at the same time be gentle enough to wipe away a child’s tears. That’s why Puffs Ultra Soft (available at Amazon) is our favorite facial tissue. After putting many of the most commonly found tissues on the market through our scientifically-designed tests, we discovered that the number of plies a tissue may have, or whether it includes lotion, doesn't necessarily make a great tissue.
Puffs Ultra Soft is the best facial tissue we tested.
Very soft
Pretty durable
Triple-ply
Leave tiny shreds behind after repeated use
Nicely soft and comfortable
Nicely strong and absorbent
None that we could find
Quite strong with triple ply
Scratchy despite aloe coating
Not really absorbent
Stronger than other budget options
Absorbs liquid well
Not too comfortable against the skin
Lost strength after use
Hi, I’m Alicia Cypress, the managing editor for Reviewed’s “Best Right Now” product guides. I oversee the team of editors and writers who have produced more than 400 of these buying guides to help you compare and purchase the best products. But recently I realized we were missing something: After Reviewed created guides for toilet paper, paper towels and trash bags, there was another paper product we failed to test. And more importantly, cold and allergy season is no longer limited to a single season, so I took matters into my own hands (and nose) and began researching tissues.
Choosing which tissues to test was pretty straightforward. As Kleenex is one of those ubiquitous brand names, it was vital to include them. We also chose other popular brands you were apt to find on store shelves, such as Puffs and Scotties. We then added in the Walmart and Target brands to round out the list. But testing the best wasn’t just about the brand names, we made sure to get several examples from some of the brands to see how two-ply might test against three-play or those with added lotion may fare within the same brand.
Testing tissues meant a lot of nose blowing. Together with my colleague, Reviewed Senior Scientist Julia MacDougall, we blew our noses with different force, over and over again and then some more. We tested for durability by using the same tissue multiple times and I used each tissue to sop up a teaspoon of water (note: tissues with added lotion don’t do so well here).
We spent several days with each box totaling about three weeks of testing. Lucky for us (although unlucky for them), during this same time frame, a handful of our Reviewed colleagues were struggling with colds and allergies, so we asked them to use a few boxes and give us their opinions.
One of our original tests was also to see how easy it was to pull each tissue out of the box, but ultimately decided not to use that in our scoring, since it quickly became obvious, that was more a question of the shape of the box, rather than the quality of the tissue. But for the record (and in case you’re curious), we found the long horizontal boxes are the best for quickly pulling out a tissue, while the square boxes usually needed a slight bit of extra force.
During our testing period, I also used each tissue multiple times to remove my eye makeup. This test not only helped me understand the durability of the tissues when wet with liquid but also how they felt around a sensitive part of the face while doing double duty for what it would be like to wipe away tears. To further see how these tissues hold up under intense emotional pressure, I surrounded myself with the boxes while watching episodes of “This is Us” and “A Million Little Things” to see which tissues I might reach for when the waterworks started to naturally flow.
It's common to call tissues "Kleenex," but remember, Kleenex is just one particular brand's name.
First and foremost, these are facial tissues. Bathroom tissue is toilet paper, and there’s also the more colorful kind of tissue you use to wrap gifts. Also, and perhaps, more importantly, it’s not Kleenex, either. Kleenex is a brand name and a registered trademark. The brand (along with other brands who face similar genericization of their products ) has even run advertisements in publications like the Columbia Journalism Review, to hammer in that their trademarked-name should not be used for the generic product. So, unless you’re talking about the specific Kleenex brand, don’t ask your friend for a Kleenex to blow your nose!
The word ply in the world of facial tissues refers to the number of paper layers making up each tissue. For this roundup, we only tested two-ply and three-ply tissues. The extra layers should provide extra durability, but as you’ll see in our results, the extra layers don’t always mean you’ll have a top tissue.
This is a personal preference. In our tests, we found that the tissues with lotion had a harder time sopping up the dab of water. And while I would have expected these to be the winners in our comfort testing, it’s a subjective call and not everyone who tested liked them.
Alicia Cypress oversaw Reviewed's "The Best Right Now" product guides. She’s a veteran journalist, spending her career before Reviewed at The Washington Post and NPR. In her free time, she studies and writes about wine.
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