Experts say a good facial cleanser should rinse off easily without leaving the skin feeling greasy or clogging pores. It shouldn't irritate your skin or dry it, or burn your eyes. It should make your skin feel clean, and remove makeup without the need for scrubbing. Although cosmetics companies would like you to believe that you have to pay more for quality skin care, experts say that's not true. In reviews, many drugstore brands are just as good as those at the department store.

Experts say the following about choosing a cleanser:

  • Avoid heavily fragranced products, because the ingredients used to perfume a product can cause skin irritation.
  • Cleansers that produce a lot of lather are no more effective than those that don't. Furthermore, ingredients included to produce lather can sometimes be irritants.
  • No matter what an advertiser promises, a skin cleanser will not prevent or reverse signs of aging.
  • Standard detergent ingredients are common in skin cleansers and generally will not harm the skin. However, two such ingredients -- sodium lauryl sulfate and TEA-lauryl sulfate -- are especially strong and potentially irritating. You should avoid skin-care products that list these in the first part of the ingredients list.
  • Don't wash your face more than twice a day. Anything more can strip the skin of natural oils that retain moisture. Beauty expert Rona Berg points out that those with dry and sensitive skin may only need to use facial cleanser at night and then simply rinse with lukewarm water in the morning.
  • Plant ingredients are not necessarily effective, or even healthy. Some, such as mint or menthol, can actually irritate the skin. Don't assume that natural ingredients are necessarily good or that synthetic ones are bad.
  • Inexpensive facial cleansers generally work just as well as higher-priced products, and in some cases even better. Costly skin-care products often contain the same ingredients as budget cleansers, and are sometimes made by the same parent company, but are priced higher because of packaging or marketing hype.
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