Custom cleanser formulation
The most-used product in any routine, judged almost entirely on how skin feels in the sixty seconds after rinsing.
Cleansers are used daily, often twice, which makes them the product most likely to cause cumulative problems and the one customers judge fastest. The whole category is a balance between removing what needs removing and leaving the barrier intact.
Surfactant selection drives nearly everything: foam character, cleansing strength, how the skin feels after rinsing, and how well the product tolerates hard water. Marketing shorthand like "sulfate-free" describes what a formula avoids rather than whether it is gentle, and a poorly built sulfate-free system can be harsher than a well-built one containing them.
The category also spans very different physical systems — gels, creams, balms, oils, powders — that share almost nothing technically beyond intent. Choosing the format is a formulation decision with real consequences for cost, packaging and claims.
What makes this category difficult
- Surfactant system designPrimary and secondary surfactants set foam, cleansing power and afterfeel together. Optimising for foam alone typically produces a product that strips, because foam and gentleness are not the same axis.
- Barrier toleranceTightness after rinsing is the most common complaint and generally signals over-cleansing. It is addressable through surfactant choice and system design rather than by adding conditioning agents to compensate.
- pH targetingCleansers sitting well above skin pH can disrupt the barrier over repeated daily use. Achievable pH is constrained by the surfactant system, so the two are decided together rather than sequentially.
- Format-specific problemsBalms need an emulsifier system that rinses cleanly without leaving film. Oil cleansers must emulsify predictably on contact with water. Powder formats bring flow and dosing considerations that liquids never encounter.
Formats developed
- Gel and foaming cleansers
- Cream and milk cleansers
- Cleansing balms
- Cleansing oils
- Powder and enzyme cleansers
- Micellar systems
Before you write the brief
Settle these and the first conversation goes considerably further.
- Where in the routine it sits — first cleanse, second cleanse, or single-step
- Whether it must remove makeup and sunscreen
- Foam expectation, which is a positioning decision as much as a technical one
- Skin type and tolerance target
- Format and packaging, which constrain the formula significantly
Common questions
Is sulfate-free automatically gentler?
No. "Sulfate-free" describes what is absent, not how the system behaves. A well-built formula containing a sulfate can be gentler than a poorly built one without. The relevant question is the whole surfactant system, not one ingredient class.
Why does my cleanser leave skin feeling tight?
Usually over-cleansing — the system is removing more than it needs to. Adding moisturising ingredients to compensate rarely fixes it; changing the surfactant system generally does.
Can one cleanser remove sunscreen and still be gentle?
Modern sunscreens are designed to resist water and rubbing, so removing them takes real cleansing power. It is achievable in a single step, but it is a genuine trade rather than a free one, and worth deciding deliberately.
How to work on this
Related categories
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