The Best natural face wash for teenagers

As we mention in a previous blog, the aging process starts as soon as the teenage years. That is why establishing a proper skincare routine for your tweens and teens is mandatory. A good skincare routine is composed of different habits (check our blog about it) and the first one is the habit of cleansing the skin. So, how do you choose the best face wash for teenagers? and why is it important?

Acne can be a frustrating condition that affects teenage skin particularly. It is estimated by stats, that 79% to 95% of the population show some type or another during this age; this happens because teenage skin generates massive amounts of sebum (oil) which accumulates on the skin surface and mixes with dead cells clogging pores leading ultimately possible acne breakouts – also known as «comedones.»

This clogging-pores process makes teenage skin acne-prone skin however, it doesn’t have to be that way. We probably can’t avoid the excessive sebum that accumulates on the skin due to hormonal changes during adolescence, but with a proper cleansing habit, we can help remove the excess oil, environmental toxins, sweat, and bacteria that accumulate on the skin throughout the day.

Beyond the specific product you can buy when your kids start needing a cleanser, you need to understand what to look for in a cleanser:

• Criteria 1: Age
• Criteria 2: Cleansing process
• Criteria 3: Ingredients according to the cleanser type
• Criteria 4: pH

Let’s go deeper into this.

The delicate skin of a tween is prone to dehydration, so they need highly moisturizing cleansers. Cleansing too much with an adult product can lead your child’s face to irritation and dryness which could cause acne breakouts later on down the line!

Teenage is the age when we generate more sebum in our lives. However, because the skin is still young, it is prone to irritation. At this age, a proper cleanser needs to remove the excess oil without causing dehydration.

How then to balance both hydration and proper cleansing to keep our tween’s or teens’ skin healthy?. Here is where criteria 2 comes into action.

The dilemma of how to remove oil-soluble dirt without also removing the lipidic mantle from the skin has been an ongoing challenge in skincare. To create more tension, surfactants -which are the detergents in a cleansing product- have been added. However, using more amount of surfactant can lead to dehydration, which weakens the function of the skin barrier, leaving it unprotected to face the hormonal imbalance of age.

A solution seems difficult at first glance because there are two opposite sides: one where you want your teenager’s face clean but still contain all its natural integrity; another tuning out most surface impurities to avoid these clogging their pores.

The “two-step cleansing process” isn’t just a catchy name for your beauty routine. It’s an innovative way to cleanse and moisturize the skin without compromising its natural oils, which can be difficult with other types of cleansers that dry out or strip away too much moisture from our pores over time!

To start, you need something called «pre-cleansers.» These are oil-based products that have been designed to mix with sebum and become milky in contact with water. Then the sebum excess can be removed without affecting the skin surface tension.

Then, the second step is where you rinse off all remaining dirt from your face using a gentle skin cleanser (water-based) like a foaming face wash for example. This way, the first phase will emulsify sebum along with any other gunky substances attached like makeup residue or sweat without compromising the skin’s natural lipids including its thickness!

That is the beauty of the process. An oil-based cleanser is not about taking any oil and putting directly into the face. It is more about using a specific product made as a cleanser, which includes a surfactant ingredient that supports the cleansing process but in contact with water becomes milk. This avoids bringing excess oil to teenager’s skin.

Indeed, this is the best way to clean if there are skin issues. If we rely only on a water-based face wash, a higher amount of surfactants can lead to irritated skin.

When choosing a face wash for teens, the right one will depend on the specific needs of the teen’s skin. for example, if the goal is to prevent or reduce breakouts, a face wash with salicylic acid might be a good choice. For teens with dry skin, a hydrating face wash could be the answer!

That is why criteria 3 is so important. Let’s take a look!

The skin is the largest organ in our body. for good or for bad, everything we put on it can potentially get absorbed into skin deeper layers or even into our bloodstream. So, the question would be, what do you prefer for your children? natural products made with ingredients that can talk and feed the skin? or products made of harsh chemicals that could potentially be harmful to their health? The answer is yours.

My best tips when choosing the right oil-best cleanser would be:

• Avoid oil cleansers based on mineral oil. This is not just bad for the environment but for young skin as well. Since the skin does not absorb it easily, it can create a film on the skin that could lead to clogged pores.
• Choose vegetable oils instead. The natural oils of your skin love vegetable oils! These are formed of skin-like fatty acids that will provide food to it from the moment they’re applied.
• Check the comedogenic index. This index measures the potentiality to clog the pores of an oil. Vegetable oils are rated on a scale from 0 to 5, with lower values being non-comedogenic. Oily skin or normal skin should go for oils with rates of 0 or 1, while sensitive and dry skin could tolerate even index 2 without risk of clogging pores.
• Argan oil, sunflower oil, watermelon oil, berries oils, and hemp seed oil, are examples of oils with a comedogenic index between 0 and 1. (you can find more information about oil’s comedogenic index here)

When it comes to choosing the best face wash for teenagers, we first need to think that it has to be a gentle face wash. But what is that? what makes a face wash gentle?

• A facial cleanser targeting adult skin will have a higher amount of surfactants which can irritate sensitive skin. A gentle cleanser targeted as a face wash for tweens or face wash for teenage should contain a lower surfactant charge
• A face wash for teens should contain humectant ingredients. This way the gentle cleanser will help to soothe skin and keep skin hydrated
• The main natural ingredients used as humectants in cleansing products are aloe vera, glycerine, and propanediol, among others.
• Despite hyaluronic acid being known for its humectant properties, it is commonly used in leave-on products like moisturizers because it would make the cleanser too expensive.

When teenage acne has already appeared, my recommendation is to follow the instructions of your dermatologist for acne treatment.

However, below are some ingredients commonly found in an acne face wash that look for clear skin after breakouts have appeared:

• Salicylic acid. It’s one of my favorites. It exfoliates gently bringing a clearer skin. The usual concentration in a product is 2% however, I only recommend this concentration above 16 years old. Before that, 1% of concentration would be my choice to avoid skin irritation.
• Salicylic acid is usually present in water-based face cleansers. However, to activate this ingredient, the pH of the product should be very low (3 to 4) which is too acid for young skin. I would recommend it in the pre-cleansing step, as it disperses very well in oil without having to be in a specific pH range
• When it comes to natural ingredients, tea tree oil is very used due to its antibacterial properties. However, this ingredient can cause sensitization and I wouldn’t recommend it for tween or teen skin
• If we are looking to calm irritated skin, I would choose fragrance-free products

Therefore, my recommendation when choosing the right cleanser for tweens and teens, is that always choose a cleanser with a pH 5.5 or 6. This will be more friendly with your children’s faces.

iUNIK’s selection of natural ingredients in their cleansers really blew me away. These are not just natural but carefully selected to avoid any toxic-rated ingredients.

The selection of macadamia oil brings palmitoleic fatty acid to the formula, which is part of the natural skin sebum inheriting its antibacterial and anti-inflammatory properties.

iUNIK two-steps cleansing routine has minimum contra’s in my point of view which I mention below but these are irrelevant to give this product with a top score in the natural choices:

• The oil cleanser has ylang-ylang essential oil as its fragrance, which can cause sensitization when is present in the formula in amounts above 0.4%. It’s one of the last ingredients in the formula so, it is probably below this amount. However, if your kid has sensitive skin would try a patch before for this and any other skincare product
• The foam cleanser has a lot of botanical extract in very low proportions (which I assume according to the ingredients list). In my opinion, less is more, and I would have chosen fewer ingredients in higher proportions.
• The adding of licorice extract to the foam cleanser would be the only negative-rated ingredient in the list (Check it here). Despite licorice has been widely used for whitening and skin regeneration, this extract exhibits estrogenic activity due to a possible impact on the pituitary hormone secretion.

It has a high content of oleic acid, which could increase sebum production if the teenage skin is already displaying some imbalances in sebum production.

On the other hand, some studies have shown that the presence of unsaturated fatty acids such as oleic acid and palmitoleic acid could induce scaly skin and abnormal keratinization involved in acne vulgaris and keratosis pilaris.

This two-steps cleansing combination of Caudalie, have the right choice for acne-prone skin type.

The use of fragrance is always a risk as this could contain irritant ingredients that could worsen skin conditions such as acne. For the «Purifying gel cleanser» the essential oils forming fragrance have been disclosed which I appreciate, however, no matter how much I love essential oils, these could cause skin sensitization.

So, we come to the end of this post. I hope you have found it helpful and informative. Remember, getting into the habit of cleansing skin should happen as soon as possible, preferably when your teenager is still young. The right cleanser for them will be determined by their skin type or any specific challenges they may have. We suggest giving our analyzed products a try – they’ve worked well for us and thousands of others! Thanks for reading.