little white truths

This cleanser has been on my Project Pan list for a while and I've been using it almost every day for months, so I'm definitely ready to review it.

Unfortunately I don't love it and while I don't think it's a bad product, it's not the right cleanser for me. Indeed when I bought it, I actually thought I was buying the Alpha-H Liquid Gold Skin Renewal Wash (reviewed here) - a product I used a while ago and absolutely loved - but silly me I didn't check the name and bought the wrong one. Oops! This one doesn't work as well for my skin. More on that below.

Alpha-H claims/product details:

• This daily facial cleanser fights visible signs of ageing while promoting soft, clear skin
• A luxurious multitasking cleanser that sweeps away impurities, primes the skin to better absorb and benefit from subsequent treatments, and smooths the skin’s texture and tone
• Added shea butter and coconut oil work to nourish and hydrate skin, while glycolic and lactic acids help to clear pores and resurface skin
• Your skin will be bright, smooth and glowing in no time
• Gently exfoliates
• Boosts moisture
• May help reduce the appearance of pores
• Boost's anti-ageing and cellular regeneration
• Eliminates dead cells and pollution particles
• Strengthens the skin's protective barrier
• Minimises the appearance of ageing
• May help to reduce imperfections such as acne scarring, in-grown hairs and hyperpigmentation
• Non-drying, detergent and sulphate free formula
• Suitable for dry, normal, acne-prone and mature skin
• RRP $59.95 AUD for 100ml, but do shop around

Verdict

I don't think this is a bad product and it's had some good reviews online, it's just not the right cleanser for me because it's quite strong and I don't want a cream cleanser that's heavy on the acids (I have other products for that), and it also wasn't the product I was expecting so it's not surprising that I was disappointed when I started using it and realised I'd bought the wrong thing.

It's a cream product with a faint chemical scent that shouldn't bother most people. It spreads and applies well, and although the texture is creamy, it doesn't feel hydrating on my skin - if anything it dries it out a little.

What I normally do with this is apply it and leave it on for a couple of minutes to get more benefit from the acids it contains, then I add water to emulsify it, massage it and remove it with a damp face cloth. When applied it does start to tingle - not in an uncomfortable way, but in a 'this is working' way - so I can tell there's a good amount of active ingredients in the formula, which may be a plus for some.

Do note that although this can be used to remove makeup, I don't use it as a first cleanse because it's too expensive to be a makeup remover and I would rather use it as a skin cleanser. I'm sure it would remove makeup reasonably well, though, because it has the right texture for that and creams usually do.

In terms of how my skin feels after use, it always feels a bit too resurfaced and sometimes uncomfortable. If I weren't using a bunch of other AHA products then this mightn't be the case, but I have an AHA toner and some of the serums I use also contain active ingredients - and while my skin can handle more gentle AHA cleansers, this one's a little too much and my face doesn't like it. 

Also worth noting is that it has quite a low pH (somewhere between a four and a five, according to my pH strips), so it's probably not surprising that it feels a little too strong for my skin - which admittedly gets a lot of acid put on it and doesn't need more.

On the claims: no I don't think this has done anything for my visible signs of ageing; yes it removes impurities and clears pores; yes it exfoliates but in my case it doesn't do so gently and it can leave my skin feeling sensitised; and no I don't think it boosts hydration (it can leave my skin feeling dry) and it hasn't done anything for my acne-scarring or hyperpigmentation either.

Overall I think this cleanser is decent enough but it's not the right product for me and it may be a case of having too many active ingredients in too many steps of my skincare routine. Perhaps if you don't use any active ingredients then this might be a good product to try, but in my case, it's one item too many - and too be honest, my skin doesn't like it anyway so I don't think it would work for me even if I wasn't using my other AHA products.

Not for me.