- Creamy, foamy lather
- Very light, clean smell that's not overpowering.
- Contains both an acne-fighting ingredient plus alpha hydroxy acids
- Doesn't rinse away very easily
- It's a little slow to lather.
- Foaming acne cleanser with 0.5% salicylic acid
- Contains glycolic acid
- Part of the Neutrogena Healthy Skin line
Any acne sufferer who is older than the age of 30 gets excited when a product promises to help fight blemishes and wrinkles. That's how this cleanser made it in to my cart in the first place.
I tend to prefer foaming cleansers, so I was pleased to find this product (so many cleansers aimed at adult acne sufferers tend to be nonfoaming creams). I liked that it didn't have any scrubbing granules, or "microbeads," as the skin care world likes to call them. Just a smooth, creamy lather.
It does take a fair bit of emulsifying between the hands to really get that lather going, though, so be patient.
A big plus is that this cleanser contains glycolic acid, in addition to the acne-fighting salicylic acid. Glycolic acid is an alpha hydroxy acid, commonly used in anti-aging treatments. It helps slough away skin cells revealing the soft, smooth skin underneath.
I found that unless I was careful, it was easy to squeeze too much from the tube. You don't need much of this cleanser, a little really goes a long way. The gel-like consistency, which I otherwise really liked, made the cleanser easy to slide off the fingers and down the drain. Personally, I think it would be easier if this product were packaged in a pump bottle instead of a tube.
Another factor that detracted from the overall quality of this cleanser was that it was hard to rinse. Despite what it says on the packaging, it felt like it left a film on the skin unless rinsed really, really well.
I think adult acne sufferers will really like this product, provided their skin is relatively oily. Those with drier skin types may want to stick with a cleansing cream instead. For the price, though, this is a nice and fairly gentle salicylic acid cleanser.
