Men's Daily Face Wash

Details

A mild gel at pH 5.5 for skin that is oilier on average and gets a blade across it every morning. Eleven ingredients, all with percentages. The cheat in men's grooming is the whole category. A men's face wash is usually an ordinary cleanser base with three things added: menthol, so it stings and the sting reads as strength; a blue or black dye, so it looks like a different product; and a heavier fragrance. Then it is priced above the same base sold to women. There is no male skin chemistry that needs a different molecule. What is true is a matter of averages: adult male facial skin is measurably thicker, around 20 percent, and sebum output is higher, and a face that is shaved daily has had its top layer physically scraped every morning. So the honest men's wash is a slightly higher surfactant load for the oil, zinc PCA for shine, and nothing at all that stings a freshly shaved face. That is exactly what this is, and we are not going to dress it up as anything more. The Rs 20 between this and our gentle daily face wash is not the word on the front. It is the sodium cocoyl isethionate, which costs more than a glucoside, and the zinc PCA. If you have normal or dry skin and do not shave, the gentle daily face wash is a better buy at Rs 245, and if your skin is dry or reactive the cream face wash is better still. If you are oily and breaking out, the clarifying face wash carries salicylic acid at 1.0 percent, which this one deliberately does not, because acid on skin that is shaved daily is easy to overdo.

• Full INCI, in descending order: Aqua, Coco-Glucoside, Sodium Cocoyl Isethionate, Glycerin, Aloe Barbadensis Leaf Juice, Phenoxyethanol, Zinc PCA, Xanthan Gum, Allantoin, Ethylhexylglycerin, Citric Acid
• With percentages: Coco-Glucoside 10.0, Sodium Cocoyl Isethionate 5.0, Glycerin 4.0, Aloe Barbadensis Leaf Juice 2.0, Phenoxyethanol 0.7, Zinc PCA 0.5, Xanthan Gum 0.4, Allantoin 0.2, Ethylhexylglycerin 0.1, Citric Acid to pH, and Aqua is the balance at 77.1
• The 1 percent line falls after the aloe, and order below it means nothing
• Measured pH 5.5 per lot, which is what makes it safe to use straight before a razor
• Total active surfactant about 9.5 percent, from a glucoside plus an isethionate. No SLS, no SLES, and nothing harsher swapped in for them
• Zinc PCA at 0.5 percent, a stated dose, for midday shine
• No menthol and no camphor. Freshly shaved skin has an open route in, and menthol on it is a sting sold as efficacy
• No dyes. A face wash does not need to be blue
• No scrub particles: no plastic microbeads and no walnut shell, whose fractured edges cause fine tears on skin that is already being scraped daily
• No fragrance of any kind, no parfum, no essential oil, none of the 26 EU declarable components. This is the one that costs a men's product something, because the category is sold on smell
• No parabens, and no MIT or CMIT behind them. Phenoxyethanol 0.7 percent with ethylhexylglycerin 0.1 percent
• Honest trade-off one: it does not smell of anything, and if you have been buying a face wash partly for how the bathroom smells afterwards, this will feel like a downgrade
• Honest trade-off two: at 9.5 percent active surfactant it foams moderately, not hugely. Foam is a surfactant property, not a cleaning measurement
• Honest trade-off three: this will not fix ingrown hairs or razor bumps. Those are a blade and technique problem, and no cleanser sold anywhere solves them