Mo wants to know…How does The Body Shop Aloe Calming Facial Cleanser clean when it has absolutely no SLS/SLES in it? The ingredients suggest that it is more of a moisturizer. I’m confused.

The Right Brain responds: 

To answer Mo’s missive let’s take a look at the ingredients…

The Body Shop Aloe Calming Facial Cleanser ingredients

Water, Aloe Barbadensis Gel, Pentylene Glycol, Caprylic/Capric Triglyceride, Elaeis Guineensis (Palm) Oil, Butylene Glycol, Cyclomethicone, Glycerin, Glyceryl Stearate Citrate, Cetearyl Alcohol, Sorbitol, Glyceryl Stearate, Orbignya Oleifera (Babassu) Oil, Acrylates/C10-30 Alkyl Acrylate Crosspolymer, Xanthan Gum, Disodium Phosphate.

As Mo aptly pointed out there’s nary a detergent to be found in this product. However, that doesn’t mean it doesn’t have any cleansing properties. Remember there are more than one mechanism for cleansing. Detergents (the typical foaming cleansers that include soap and synthetic detergents like SLS and SLES) are one way. They work by allowing oils and water to mix. 

Solvent green

The other approach is to use solvents that dissolve oily dirt; that’s how the old school cold creams work. This product is more like that because it contains oily material which have solvency like Pentylene Glycol, Caprylic/Capric Triglyceride, and Palm Oil. Instead of “washing” away greasy dirt, these solvents dissolve them through the principle of “like dissolves like.” (If you’re not familiar with this concept you can read our post on how oil-based makeup removers work.)

The downside of this approach is that it may not remove heavy, greasy makeup and it may not leave your skin feeling clean. You’ll have to try it for yourself to see if works for the kind of makeup removal you need. But don’t be freaked out just because you don’t see SLS or SLES on the label.

The Beauty Brains bottom line

Like the old saying goes, there’s more than one way to skin a cat Or in this case, there’s more than one way to clean a skin. Just because a product doesn’t contain typical cleansing ingredients doesn’t mean it won’t clean.

What do YOU think? Do you like foaming cleansers or the like-dissolves-like cold cream style? Leave a cleansing comment and share your thoughts with the rest of the Beauty Brains community.  

Meg’s facial cleansing inquiry: Here’s a question for your lovely blog. The Internet is full of recommendations for the “oil cleansing method” which involves washing the face with various oils such castor, olive, jojoba, almond, emu, corncrake, and engine oil. There are all kinds of claims made for this method, one of them being “oil dissolves oil.” I guess that means that castor oil will remove sebum. It undoubtedly works for many people, but is that claim true? It seems an extraordinary one to make.

The Right Brain’s response:
Thank you Meg, it’s lovely to have our blog called lovely! While we’ve never tried corncrake or engine oil, we do know that the oil cleansing is a legitimate way to dissolve dirt and oil and remove it from your skin.

Solving dissolving

For one substance to dissolve another it has to break apart the chemical bonds that hold it together. (We call the chemical that’s being dissolved the “solute” and the chemical that’s doing the dissolving is the “solvent.” Chemists are good at coming up with clever names like that.) Generally speaking, there are two kinds of chemical bonds: ionic and covalent. Not to get too geeky on you, but ionic bonds are formed by the attraction of two oppositely charged atoms and covalent bonds are formed by two atoms sharing a pair of electrons.

Like dissolves like

When you use oil to remove oily dirt you’re employing the chemical principle called “like dissolves like.” In other words, oils will dissolve other materials that have a similar chemical structure. As an example let’s look at emu oil just because the emu is a silly looking bird and it always makes us smile. The atoms in emu oil (the solvent) are held together by covalent bonds. Now, if the solute is greasy makeup or skin oils (aka sebum), it also consists of atoms that are hooked together with covalent bonds. So that means that emu oil is similar enough to dissolve all the gunk on your face. Cool, huh? What? You want to learn more? What are you, some kind of chemical sadist? Ok, far be it for us to deny you chemical knowledge – click here to read more dissolution theory.

Cleansers that dissolve

Cosmetic chemists use the “like dissolves like” principle to formulate oil-based cleansers in liquid and cream form. (Water based cleansers that use detergents to remove oil use an entirely different chemistry so we’ll save that discussion for another day.) The liquid cleansers are pure oil while the creams are oils mixed with water, emulsifiers and thickners. The classic example of a “cold cream” type cleanser is Noxema. Here are some other examples.

Examples of oil based cleansers

1. Max Factor For Long Lasting Makeup

• Type of cleanser: Oil
• Primary cleansing agents: Mineral oil, Isopropyl Palmitate

2. Pond’s Deep Cleanser & Make-up Remover with Cucumber Extract

• Type of cleanser: Cream
• Primary cleansing agents: Mineral Oil, Isopropyl Palmitate

3. Physician’s Formula Makeup Remover For Dry, Normal skin

• Type of cleanser: Cream
• Primary cleansing agents: Mineral Oil, Petrolatum

4. Kiehls Oil Based Cleanser and Makeup Remover

• Type of cleanser: Oil
• Primary cleansing ingredients: Isopropyl isostearate, isopropyl myristate, squalane

What’s your favorite facial cleanser? Oils, creams, or water-based? Share your secrets with the rest of the Beauty Brains community.