A quality facial cleanser is the foundation of any good skincare routine. Whether you double cleanse with an oil beforehand or not, your choice in cleanser matters! If you’re not careful, your cleanser could be doing more harm than good. Your cleanser should not be stripping. It should clean the skin while also being gentle and protecting the moisture barrier.
How can we know which cleansers are good and which are bad? Well, you know the drill around here: ingredients!
A great option for a cleanser that is beneficial and non-stripping is 100% Pure’s Rose Water Gel Cleanser. We’ve talked about the hydrating milk from this line as well, and we love their cleanser just as much!
To understand why, though, we have to dive into those ingredients, as well as into the ingredients of similar products from brands that may be pulling the wool over your eyes. If there’s anything we know, it’s that just because a brand is successful and popular does not mean they have your best interest at heart or that they are choosing the most beneficial ingredients.
That being said, let’s talk all things cleansers and ingredient benefits!
Rose Hydrosol Benefits
The namesake for this product is rose water, so why are we kicking this off talking about something called rose hydrosol? That is a fantastic and important question! In short, rose hydrosol is the purest form of rose water. In choosing to use this form of rose water, 100% Pure is able to ensure that the most benefits are being garnered from the plant. Rose hydrosol retains a higher volume of the beneficial minerals found in roses. While some companies may formulate products using generic “rose water”, but this company has chosen the best of the best.
When a company touts a specific ingredient in the name of a product, it is important to see the exact way in which they have included the ingredient. We want to make sure we are getting the most benefit-packed products to put on our face.
As always, when dealing with botanicals it is important to make sure your skin is not sensitive to them. We love natural fragrance, but we want to make sure our specific skin meshes well with it! However, it is worth noting that since face cleanser is rinsed off, you have a better chance of not having a reaction.
Glycerin Benefits
Here at the Nue Trend, we love humectants. What’s glycerin? You guessed it, it’s a humectant! Humectants help draw in moisture to the skin which, in turn, increases hydration. A humectant you may be familiar with is hyaluronic acid, which is actually a main ingredient in the lightweight moisturizer that is part of this 100% Pure rose water line.
For all the reasons we love hyaluronic acid, we love glycerin too! Humectants of all kinds are an important step in retaining moisture and increasing hydration. As great as they are as serums or added into moisturizers, they can be valuable and beneficial in a facial cleanser as well. As we aim for cleansers that are non-stripping, we also love to see cleansers that add ingredients like humectants as well. This aids in making sure that the cleanser is increasing hydration while also gently cleansing.
After cleansing the face, you should not be left with a tight feeling in the skin. Adding ingredients like glycerin helps to retain the moisture in the skin to prepare for moisturizer. Remember, hydrators, or humectants, differ from moisturizers. Humectants should always be sealed in by a moisturizer, or occlusive. So, make sure to never skip your moisturizing step!
100% Pure vs Neutrogena
When discussing skincare and ingredients, it’s important to talk about products brought to us by some of the biggest names in skincare to see how the chosen ingredients compare. Just because a brand is well-known and popular does not mean they are providing formulations with ingredients we should be happy about putting on our skin.
A popular facial cleanser made by the well-known brand Neutrogena is the Hydro Boost Hydrating Cleansing Gel. There’s a lot to unpack here, and it’s not pretty.
We’ll ease in with the only positive note I can think of: their second ingredient is glycerin. As we discussed above, glycerin is great. However, why is it the second ingredient? Oh, the first ingredient is water. We don’t typically like to see water, especially as a first ingredient, because it just dilutes the beneficial ingredient and causes the formulation to not be as high quality. Where does glycerin fall in the Rose Water Gel Cleanser? Number one, baby!
Speaking of the order of ingredients, you may notice that the front of the packaging touts a promise of hyaluronic acid. Front and center, Neutrogena implies that hyaluronic is a main player in this product. Can you guess where hyaluronic acid falls in the ingredient list? Dead. Last. I wish I was joking. The only ingredient listed on the bottle is the absolute last ingredient—hidden away behind all kinds of unnecessary nonsense.
The Neutrogena face cleanser also contains an ingredient called phenoxyethanol. This is a common preservative used in cosmetics, and unfortunately does a lot more harm than good. 100% Pure explains it extremely well which you can read about here.
The Problem with Fragrance
One major issue in Neutrogena’s formulation is the presence of fragrance. When reading the ingredients for this product, you’ll notice one of them is simply “fragrance”. When seeing this in an ingredient list, red flags should go up. When companies simply list “fragrance”, they are not disclosing what is being used as a fragrance. At best, this means consumers cannot make informed decisions about the ingredients used, whether for sensitivities or other reasons. At worst, companies may be concealing toxic chemicals used as artificial fragrance. These chemicals can range from being endocrine disruptors to even being potentially carcinogenic. The issue is that a lot of the time, not a lot is known about these ingredients and, yet, companies continue to use them in their formulations.
Why would a company choose to use such risky ingredients just for the sake of fragrance? That is a fantastic question that I would love to ask these multibillion-dollar companies. Oh yeah, Neutrogena is owned by Johnson & Johnson, a massive corporation. You’d think they would dedicate even a small fraction of their funds to looking into higher quality, less damaging ingredients, right?
Sadly, this is not the case. I, for one, do not understand why it is not. Especially since there are so many natural, and nontoxic, ways to make your products smell good. We can see a perfect example of that in 100% Pure’s Rose Water Gel Cleanser.
100% Pure values providing safe and pure ingredients for their consumers, but that doesn’t mean sacrificing the luxurious experience of skincare that smells nice. In order to achieve this, they chose to include botanical extracts and essential oils. This allows for the company to provide a fragrant product without sacrificing the health of its consumers.
Remember, just because something is safe and natural does not mean some people won’t have sensitivities to it. So, as always, patch test especially if you have sensitive skin! I do want to note, though, that I, personally, am one to avoid essential oils in my skincare due to my sensitive skin. However, I do love products that smell nice and give me a spa-like feel. Facial cleansers are one way I like to fit these kinds of products into my routine. Since they will be rinsed off, I can feel safer about putting the natural fragrances on my skin.
Final Thoughts
I know it seems like purchasing a facial cleanser is the least complicated part of a skincare routine, but it is so important! It can feel overwhelming as you scan the aisles of your nearest Target or Walmart, but as we say here at the Nue Trend: the truth is in the ingredients!
Remember, just because a company is well known doesn’t mean its products are made well. Here at the Nue Trend we try out best to get the word out about products that are worth putting on your skin.
