This K-Beauty Face Cleanser Is So Popular, One Sells Every 3.1 Seconds

Out of all the products in the wide world of skin care, the general consensus is that your cleanser doesn't matter a ton. Don't write it off altogether, because washing the sweat, dirt, oil, and pollution off your face at the end of the day does make a difference. But when it comes to spending your money, pricey cleansers usually aren't worth it, because it's on your face for about four seconds before you wash it down the drain. One exception is Banila Co.'s $21 Clean It Zero balm cleanser, which earns a second look based on its eye-popping stats alone.

The original Clean It Zero is a thing of lore in K-beauty communities. On review sites, it rakes in five star reviews by the hundreds, and glowing praise for its gentle but thorough cleansing power. (Scroll through and you'll repeats of "It smells soooo good!" "It literally melts makeup away" and "My skin feels so soft!" by the dozens.) According to the brand, the oil balm's sales back up the raves; one is sold every 3.1 seconds, which is a crazy stat to wrap your head around. However, despite the cleanser's best-seller status, the brand recently reformulated and re-released it as a new line of concern-targeting cleansers.

Gone are the turquoise tubs and swirly script, replaced by effervescently glowing tubs in pastel shades. The original formula now comes in a pink tub, the "purifying" one in purple, "revitalizing" in green, and "nourishing" in yellow.

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Marketing euphemisms can be tough to translate (what really is the difference between revitalizing and nourishing?), so we went straight to Nadia Kanwal, Senior Marketing and Digital Manager for Banila Co., for an orientation. The best-selling original was made with "normal" skin in mind, so if you see the odd zit but don't deal with off the charts oil or dryness, the cleanser focuses on brightening your skin with Vitamin C from acerola extracts. It's a kind of cherry with 134 percent of your daily Vitamin C requirements, so the stuff is strong.

Purifying usually refers to a formula that sucks gunk out of your skin, but not here. Instead, the purple-tub formula focuses on soothing with an overload of herbs. Among them are green tea, chamomile, and centella, each of which calms down inflammation. The yellow nourishing formula makes the most color-coordinated sense; it draws on royal jelly, a moisturizing bee byproduct, and ginseng berry—which has great antioxidant properties.

Last up is the revitalizing formula, which Kanwal says is the best fit for oily and combination skin. A combination of resveratrol and grape seed helps with blood circulation and your oil-moisture balance, so along with a good face massage, you can get your blood flowing (which then keeps your skin soft and plump).

While Kanwal says going by skin types is helpful as a general guide, the solution-based approach seems like the way ahead. So if your skin type has always been a shifty, hard-to-pin-down mystery, just go by the results you want to see. Judging by the growing number of skin care products focused on treating your obstacles over your skin type, they might be onto something.

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