How to cleanse your face properly: a guide to a gentle sulfate-free cleanser
Written by Hussam Aitelqadi · Founder of AZOURANE · Sarajevo
The question we get most often in the shop is not about cream. It is about the cleanser. Why skin stings after washing. Why it feels tight. Whether that means it is clean. It does not. It means the cleanser took away something it should have left alone.
Why the cleanser is half the result
Skin has a lipid barrier and a mild acidity, around pH 5. A sulfate gel disturbs that barrier for two to four hours. In that window skin loses water and irritates more easily, so your cream ends up repairing damage instead of building on anything. A good cleanser lifts dirt and SPF and leaves the barrier alone.
Three mistakes almost everyone makes
Hot water. It feels wonderful in winter, and it strips the oil out of your skin. Lukewarm, always.
Washing too often. In the morning your skin is already clean; nothing happened overnight to dirty it. Dry skin is often fine with water and a cream first thing. A morning cleanse makes sense on oily skin. We break the rhythm of washing morning and night down step by step.
The wrong cleanser. SLS, SLES or Alcohol Denat. in the first five ingredients. You recognize it by the squeak after rinsing. That squeak is a damaged barrier, not cleanliness.
What to look for in a cleanser
- Mild surfactants: coco-glucoside, decyl glucoside, cocamidopropyl betaine.
- Humectants: glycerin and aloe vera, so nothing tightens.
- pH 4.5 to 5.5, in step with your skin.
- Declared allergens on the label, so you can check a formula against whatever you already react to.
How to wash your face properly
- Wash your hands and tie your hair back.
- Wet your face with lukewarm water.
- One or two pumps of cleanser into your palm.
- Thirty seconds in circles: face, neck, T-zone, hairline, jaw.
- Rinse thoroughly. Your face should not squeak.
- Press with a towel, do not rub, and put your cream on straight away while the skin is still damp.
Always in the evening, because of SPF, make-up and the city. In the morning, according to your skin type.
AMAAN
AMAAN is built on exactly this logic: coco-glucoside instead of sulfates, aloe vera fourth in the list and glycerin fifth against tightness, and the AQUAXYL complex to help skin hold its own water, at pH 5.0 to 5.5. It takes off SPF and make-up, and the face stays calm after rinsing. Berber women in Souss-Massa have cleansed this way for centuries, with ghassoul clay and plant oils. This is that logic in a form made for daily use.
Step two is a cream on damp skin. Cleansers compared by ingredient and price are in the guide to a gentle face cleanser in BiH.
