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Face cleanser
Vanicream Gentle Facial Cleanser
12 ingredients. The cleansers are coco-glucoside, the alkyl glucoside that barely irritated in patch tests, and sodium cocoyl glycinate, with glycerin as a humectant. No fragrance, dyes, botanical extracts, or essential oils.
Ingredients
Water, Glycerin, Coco-Glucoside, Sodium Cocoyl Glycinate, Acrylates Copolymer, Caprylyl Glycol, Mica, Sodium Chloride, 1,2-Hexanediol, Titanium Dioxide, Sodium Hydroxide, Disodium EDTA.
What we ruled out
"Clean", "natural", or "chemical-free" claims. The FDA has no definition of "natural", and no one checks these labels. Over 94% of the 1,700 "natural" products in the 2022 study contained at least one known contact allergen, so dermatologists suggest looking for "fragrance-free" instead.
Cleansers and serums with essential-oil blends (e.g. tea tree, lavender, citrus). Nearly 80 essential oils have caused contact allergy. In patch tests of patients with suspected contact dermatitis, tea tree, orange, ylang-ylang, and six others caused positive reactions in more than 2%.
Scrubs and cleansing brushes for daily washing. Scrubbing irritates skin. The AAD advises fingertips, not washcloths or mesh sponges.
Also good
CeraVe Hydrating Facial Cleanser. A cream cleanser with glycerin, ceramides, and cholesterol, free of added fragrance and accepted by the National Eczema Association. $15.99 on CeraVe's site. It has 24 ingredients, so Vanicream is the simpler choice.
Sources
- Face washing 101, American Academy of Dermatology
- Profile of irritant patch testing with detergents: sodium lauryl sulfate, sodium laureth sulfate and alkyl polyglucoside, Contact Dermatitis 48(1):26-32 (2003)
- Are "natural" skin products irritating your skin?, Stanford Medicine (reporting Young et al., JAMA Dermatology 2022) (2022)
- Essential oils, part IV: contact allergy, Dermatitis 27(4):170-175 (2016)
- Hydrating Facial Cleanser, CeraVe US