I started buying cleansing oils because I had read that they were necessary to remove Japanese sunscreens. If you are as oily and acne-prone as I am, you don’t take any chances. A few weeks after I had purchased my first Japanese sunscreen, I started using cleansing oils. I have used many cleansing oils, but there are two I keep coming back to: DHC Deep Cleansing Oil and Kose Softymo Deep Cleansing Oil.
1. DHC Deep Cleansing Oil, 6.7 oz for $26.00
This has a nice thick(ish) consistency and it it leaves no oily residue on the skin. I like the ingredient list and it is relatively inexpensive compared to other cleansing oils. I must have purchased this over half a dozen times. It takes away most makeup, although stubborn long-wearing lipsticks (Cover Girl Lip Perfection) and mascaras do require a second cleansing product, or three. In general, though I never just rely on this alone to get a deep wash. This is just a first step to remove makeup and sunscreens, while my second cleanser usually has salicylic acid or glycolic acid, to penetrates my pores, usually MD Forte III Cleanser, or Glycolix Gly/Sal 10-2 Cleanser (10% glycolic acid and 2% salicylic acid). If my skin is feeling sensitive and reactive, I will use Rodial’s Glamtox Cleansing Balm, instead of my DHC Deep Cleansing Oil or Kose Softymo Deep Cleansing Oil. However, DHC Deep Cleansing Oil will not dry you out and has a teeny bit of a conditioning base to it, probably because of the olive oil. DHC is a major Japanese company that started selling in the US via catalogue orders, but you can now find this product sold in tons of different official e-tailer businesses.
Ingredients: olea europaea (olive) fruit oil, caprylic/capric triglyceride, sorbeth-30 tetraoleate, pentylene glycol, phenoxyethanol, tocopherol, stearyl glycyrrhetinate, rosmarinus officinalis (rosemary) leaf oil
2. Kose Softymo Deep Cleansing Oil, 8.5 oz for SRP
Color me crazy but I like this oil cleanser a bit more than DHC’s. What knocks it down is the fact that it has mineral oil. Now, I will usually avoid anything with mineral oil but I make occasional exceptions. This is one of them. This stuff takes of sunscreens and makeup quickly, does not leave an oil residue, and I find it just a bit more drying than DHC’s Deep Cleansing Oil, which I actually prefer. While I trust DHC’s ingredient list more, Kose’s Softymo keeps me committing skincare sacrilege because it is just that good. It has never broken me out and it provides a deep clean. I actually think it is better at removing resistant makeup than DHC’s Deep Cleansing Oil. Remember, though, that I always DOUBLE CLEANSE because of my super oily, acne-prone skin. Kose’s Softymo is a Japanese brand that has never been marketed for the western markets, which is why all of it’s branding is in Japanese. But you can find this sold by tons of different mom and pop businesses that cater to providing hard to find asian skin care products. I generally see this sold for a little less than half the retail price of DHC’s Deep Cleansing Oil, but shipping and handling kicks up the price.
Ingredients: oryza sativa (rice) bran oil, mineral oil, sorbeth-30 tetraoleate, triethyl hexanoine, cyclomethicone, orange oil, tocopherol, simmondsia chinensis (jojoba) seed oil, glycerin, polyglyceryl-2 diisostearate, trilaureth-4 phosphate, water, phenoxyethanol
I have tried a lot of other cleansing oils, though, as I have said before. Way back when, the gold standard was Shu Uemura’s cleansing oils. So, I hopped on that bandwagon to check it out. I purchased Shu Uemura’s Cleansing Beauty Oil Premium A/O. I hated using this product. It left a filmy residue on my skin and clouded my vision quite often. This was a lot of money down the drain for me because I FORCED myself to use this as I had purchased the JUMBO size. I, also, tried Kose’s Sekkisei’s Perfect Cleansing Oil and did not like it. It was very runny, thin and it also seemed to leave a filmy residue on my skin, as well as not being as good at removing makeup. Nude Perfect Cleansing Oil had a scent I did not partcularily like, and it felt thin and not very cleansing. It, also, left residue. Origin’s Clean Energy Gentle Cleansing Oil seemed like it could be a winner, but it was thin, runny, and did not remove sunscreen and makeup residue the way I would have liked, and I did not like the scent. MAC’s Cleanse Off Oil had a nice thickish consistency compared to the others I mentioned above, and it actually did a better job of removing most makeup, but it did not leave my skin as deeply cleansed as the DHC Deep Cleansing Oil or the Kose Softymo Deep Cleansing Oil.
An honorable mention goes to Desert Essence 100% Pure Jojoba Oil, which is cheap and effective at removing makeup in a pinch. I always have a bottle on hand. I do not trust it enough to use to remove japanese sunscreens.
While I like DHC Deep Cleansing Oil and Kose Softymo Deep Cleansing Oil, I will continue to check out other similarly priced oil cleansers to see if something out there is better, quality and value wise.
Fairytales and Coffee 