Review: MINON Mild Facial Foam

   When bouncing around on Rakuten and Ebay, searching for things I hadn't heard of with descriptions I could actually read, I ran across the brand MINON. MINON seems to be a brand that focuses on creating products for sensitive skin, which I don't really have, but what caught my eye was the constant mentioning of "formulated with weak acidity to protect skin barrier". Weak acidity? A promise of a low pH? Okay, you have my attention.

   On one ebay seller's listing for the Mild Facial Foam, the description mentioned that it was formulated not just for sensitive skin, but for people who had to wash their face multiple times a day. That would be me! After I got into skincare, I learned pretty quickly that my face will break out if I do not wash it with a cleanser in both the AM and the PM. None of that 'splash with water in the morning' shit for my dainty face. That is all find and dandy, but it becomes a problem when my schedule has me needing to do a mega-cleanse around noon.

You see, I wake up in the morning at about 6am, cleanse and apply sunscreen, and then haul my still-half-asleep butt off to the barn to babysit my trainer's child, ride horses, and clean stalls. When I get back home around noon or 1pm, I'm covered in sweat, sunscreen, horse hair, and dirt. Oil AND Foam cleansing is not optional here.

So that is how I began seriously washing my face 3 times a day. 

My tried-and-true cleanser since I started Asian skincare has been Hada Labo Tokyo Moisturizing Cleanser. The US version is easy to get via Amazon Prime or a quick trip to Ulta, so I had no worries of running out of cleanser and having to pray to the USPS gods that my cleanser arrive before my face goes to shit. But I wanted to try something new, something different, and so I ordered MINON Mild Facial Foam off ebay and waited patiently while it made its way to me from Japan.

Brand: MINON

Product: Mild Facial Foam Cleanser

Country of Origin: Japan

pH: 5-5.5

Ingredients: cosDNA link (I translated the ingredients myself from the back of the bottle)

Packaging: MINON's Mild Facial Foam (henceforth called MFF) comes in a 100mL salmon-colored plastic pump bottle. It is not exactly the prettiest packaging around, but I'm very utilitarian about my cleansers. It is a sturdy bottle with a plastic cap that covers the pump, which puts out enough foam for my face with one easy pump. It is the kind of cleanser where the foaming action really comes from the pump itself, not the cleanser. 

Product: I'm not picky over my foam. I just need it to clean my face effectively without stripping me of my good oils and moisture. The MFF cleanser pumps out a good dollop of soft foam rather than the thick/dense foam that you can create with a foaming net and other cleansers. There are some larger bubbles mixed into the micro-foam and when you spread the cleanser on your face, it feels almost weightless. The fragrance is mild, but does linger around for a little bit on your hands. It is hard to describe how it smells, sorta like a light floral baby powder scent. Whatever it is, I want to bottle it and wear it as a perfume every day. I really like how MFF smells.

Looks dense, but it is really light and fluffy

Spread out a bit you can see some of the larger bubbles

Performance: This isn't an intense cleanser, this is a very light one based around cocoyl glutamic acid as a surfactant. From what I've read, cocoyl glutamic acid is a very mild amino acid surfactant that is good for sensitive skin. If you need a deep cleaning cleanser, this is not it. However, MFF was effective at removing any residue from oil cleansing, leftover sleeping pack from night, and sweat.

   After a couple weeks of using this 2 to 3 times a day, I feel comfortable in saying that this cleanser makes my old Hada Labo feel stripping and dry by comparison. It leaves my skin feeling soft, 'bouncy', and moisturized. I washed my face 4 times a day (with cool water, btw) as an experiment, and my combination skin stayed soft and balanced. No dry spots, no irritation, no crazy oil production to make up for over-washing. Just soft and clean.

Who Shouldn't Use This: People very sensitive to mild fragrance or any other ingredient in the MFF, people who want heavy/dense foam, people who need a strong cleanser for whatever reason, people who want a high pH cleanser.

Who Should Use This: Anyone who needs/wants a very gentle low-pH cleanser.

Will I Rebuy? I hope to! I purchased another one of MINON's cleansers that they promise has an acidic pH (the Amino Moist powder), so when that comes in I will be able to compare the two and see which works better for me.

*Item purchased with my own money*

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