Review: The Face Shop Face It One-Step BB Cleanser

I've just ran out of my favorite cleanser which is gold but unfortunately hard to purchase here in the Philippines. So I had to find a quick replacement and found one from The FACE Shop. They only had one of such oil cleansers at the branch I went to - Face It One Step BB Cleanser.

According to the SA, it's an oil that will become soapy upon addition of water, which is what I was expecting it to do. I wanted a one-step cleansing method to save time - but for such to work, the cleanser has to be workable, and it should clean well.

So how did it perform? 

Price and Availability: I bought it for 695 pesos (around 15 USD) from the nearest The FACE Shop (Eastwood Mall) branch. I think it is not affordable at all, but I needed one for that night so I bought it anyway. In fact, it is actually more expensive than Kose's Softymo Deep Cleansing Oil. At this price point, high expectations are unavoidable.

Packaging: The bottle looked like it was made of glass but is thankfully made of plastic - perfect for clumsy people like me. The length of the pump extrusion is inadequate, so some of the oil is spilled as I pump to dispense product on my hands.

Texture and Scent: I did not notice any irritating smell, although it does have a weak fragrance about it which reminded me of a recent trip to a salon when I got my hair colored. I think the fragrance of this cleansing oil is more apt for the hair, but not really so for the face.

In addition to the weird scent, I find the texture terrible. The oil would quickly turn soapy as you smear it on the face, and according to the instructions on the package, it was not supposed to work that way. First, the "oil" must be gently rubbed on to the skin, removing oil-based gunk on the face like makeup and sunscreen. Then water is added to turn oil into soap and is rinsed - kind of like a cheater's 2 in 1 double cleansing method.

Adding more fuel to the flame, this soapy mess is quite hard to smear on the face that I thought trying to do so might induce too much stretching of the skin and broken capillaries. In effect, I had to dispense more of this oil-soap aberration to cover my face so I could clean it without destroying it.

Ingredients: (from COSDNA) Oddly, this cleansing oil lists water as its first ingredient, which is probably the reason why it's instantly soapy once the product is rubbed on the skin. The ingredient list is quite different from what I expect from a normal cleansing oil with similar functionality such as this or this. One-Step BB Cleanser has a couple of irritating and comedogenic components which thankfully did not do anything hideous to my skin.

With this oil's lack of workability, you will still need
to double cleanse.

Performance: This product felt like a normal foaming cleanser and I had to double cleanse with Cetaphil just to be sure my sunscreen and BB cream are removed. With this "oil", I am unable to remove the excess oil off my sebaceous filament (A.K.A., whitehead) so I had a lot of those little nodules sticking about my skin. It did feel clean, it did not look clean. My cheap baby (mineral) oil can do better.

Rating: The parlor scent and meh packaging would have been easily forgiven if this product performed well and had great ingredients. Unfortunately, this cleansing oil did not feel like it was an adequate one-step cleansing product and is super expensive when compared to TFS's other facial foams. I cannot recommend this product to anyone - buy a good, truly-one-step oil cleanser instead. Or if pressed for money, mineral oil + cheap facial wash will do better than this miss.

Ingredients: 1/5 (Water, really?)
Performance: 1/5
Value for money: 1/5
Overall: 1/5