Hydrating Face Wash

A humectant blend in a mild surfactant base, and it is worth separating what each half does. The surfactants do the cleaning. The humectants, the water-binding ingredients of the glycerin family, are there mainly to offset the drying potential of the detergent while it is sitting on your face. Dermatology literature on cleansers as a class points the same way. Classic alkaline soaps at around pH 10 have been reported to thin the stratum corneum and strip the lipids between the cells, while synthetic detergents formulated near the skin's own pH appear to leave both better preserved, and mild cleansers pair their surfactants with emollients and humectants for that reason. That is ingredient class reasoning, drawn from small studies, and it has not been tested on this particular bottle. It is the honest basis for the formula and no more than that.

On the phrase water locking. It is on the carton, so it deserves a translation. A rinse-off product is on your skin for about a minute, which means the humectants here will not leave behind the reservoir of moisture that a leave-on cream does. What a wash of this kind can honestly do is remove less water and less lipid than a foaming bar or a stripping gel, so your face is closer to comfortable when you walk away from the sink. Lasting hydration comes from what you put on afterwards.

There is nothing in this bottle aimed at hair, and that means no minoxidil, no caffeine, no peptides and no botanical growth story. It is a cosmetic face wash and it does nothing to a follicle.

Two things in this range dry facial skin out. Topical minoxidil is carried in alcohol, and the solution also contains propylene glycol, which is the ingredient most often behind a dry, tight, itchy reaction. The Signature Spray adds tretinoin, which speeds up skin turnover. Somewhere between week two and week six, the skin around the hairline can start to feel tight and look flaky, and people quietly stop.

This overlaps with the Face Cleanser, and you do not need both. Take the Face Cleanser if you want the mildest, lowest-foaming wash in the range with aloe and cucumber behind it. Take this one if your skin is dry and your face also gets genuinely dirty during the day, because it cleans more thoroughly while carrying humectants to make that survivable. If your skin runs oily or breaks out, neither is right for you, and the Zinc PCA Face Wash or the Salicylic Acid Face Wash is the product to look at. Whichever wash you land on, the step that actually addresses dryness is the leave-on one, so follow it with the Face Hydration Cream, or the Ceramide Barrier Cream if your skin has got to the point of flaking and stinging.

One boundary worth stating. This is a face product and it stays on the face. The minoxidil label instructs users not to apply other medicines to the scalp, so do not carry this or any face product up onto a treated scalp. The scalp has its own washes in this range.

Use one pump twice a day, morning and evening. The 120 mL bottle holds roughly a hundred pumps, so at that rate it lasts a little under two months.

1. Wet your face with lukewarm water. Hot water pulls lipid out of skin that a topical treatment is already drying.
2. Take one pump, roughly a millilitre, into wet hands and work it into a light lather. Enough to lift oil and dirt is enough, and a thick foam is a sign you have used too much.
3. Massage it over your face for about thirty seconds, taking it up to the hairline and along the temples where a topical tends to run. Keep it away from the eye area.
4. Rinse thoroughly with lukewarm water and pat your face dry with a towel rather than rubbing it.
5. Apply your moisturiser within a minute, while the skin is still slightly damp. Dermatologists generally advise moisturising damp skin rather than fully dried skin, and it is worth doing on a face that has been under treatment.

Wash first, treat second. A topical goes on after the wash, once your skin and scalp are completely dry, never before it. Applying minoxidil and then washing an hour or two later throws the dose away, and the label asks for at least four hours between the two.

The effect is cosmetic and it arrives with the first wash. Your face should feel clean without that drawn, tight sensation as it dries, and if tightness was your main complaint you will know within a couple of days whether the change of wash has helped. Nothing accumulates and nothing needs months. If your skin is still tight after a week of using this and moisturising properly, look at the topical itself or the amount of it running down onto your face. This product will not affect your hair in any way at any point, and it is not meant to.

For external use only. Use it on the face, not on the scalp. Avoid the eye area, and rinse with plenty of water if it gets into your eyes. If your skin is already irritated or reacts easily, patch test it first on the inner forearm and wait twenty-four hours. Do not use it on skin that is broken, cracked, sunburnt or inflamed. Stop using it if you develop redness, stinging or a rash that does not settle. This is a cosmetic wash and it is not a treatment for eczema, dermatitis, acne or any other skin condition. If your scalp becomes red, inflamed, irritated or painful while you are using minoxidil, that is a stop-use signal on the drug's own label, so speak to a doctor rather than washing your way through it. Keep out of reach of children.