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Face cleanser
CeraVe Hydrating Cleanser
A cream cleanser with glycerin, ceramides, and cholesterol, and no fragrance. The US label of the same cleanser lists no sulfate cleanser.
Worth knowing
- The US label has 24 ingredients. The UK page lists the same opening ingredients, but the full UK list wasn't compared line by line.
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.
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)