A lover of my facial skin, I spent a lot of money at the drug store trying out different skin cleansers and moisturizers. These two cleansers, Cetaphil and Clean and Clear are very good cleansers, but for shoppers to get a better understanding of the cleansers’ performance, I will gladly compare the two.
Cetaphil might be a cleanser that you have never heard of. It hides on the shelves as a lesser-known brand name when compared to Neutrogena or Clearasil. Cetaphil is known as the gentle cleanser, and it comes in both a liquid and bar soap form. I have tried both forms, and I really like the bar soap form, but both are good. When used, the bar soap is applied to the face with a bit of running water. You are supposed to rub the soap all over your face to create lather. You then rinse Cetaphil from your face and dry off with a soft cloth.
After I used Cetaphil for the first time, my face felt better than it had in years. Unlike many bar facial cleansers, Cetaphil does not leave your facial skin feeling tight or dry. Your skin is left feeling clean, supple, and soft. It’s as if you applied moisturizer to it already. The Cetaphil bar lasts for month after month. I think that I may have had mine for a year already, and I use it every day. The packaging of Cetaphil reads “gentle,” and I could not agree more. After using the facial cleanser, I always feel as if I have completely pampered my skin.
I only have one complaint about Cetaphil, when I use it to wash off my make up, I sometimes have to lather up two times before my makeup is completely off of my skin. This is where my comparison of Clean and Clear comes in. Unlike Cetaphil, the Clean and Clear that has “micro scrubbers” really gets your face clean the first time. This variety has little pieces of something in it that feel like grains of sand when they rub up against your face. Called, “micro scrubbers” on the label, these little things are unique to the Clean and Clear brand. I have not run across another brand of cleanser with these things in such a great quantity as in this brand. The only draw back to the micro scrubbers in Clean and Clear is that if you use this variety daily, you will be constantly “roughening” up your face, scrubbing and scrubbing it with the sand like beads in the cleanser.
I have also tried the regular variety of Clean and Clear without the micro scrubbers and it worked well. With this variety, I also felt that my face was getting clean and clear. However, I did not test it with makeup on my face. The thing that makes Cetaphil better than Clean and Clear is that Cetaphil truly feels gentle, while Clean and Clear feels like other cleansers. Sometimes my face was left feeling a little dry, and my skin did not feel pampered like it did after being washed with Cetaphil. Clean and Clear is not significantly promoted as being a gentle cleanser, and I could not agree more. Cetaphil is not heavily promoted as being a cleanser that leaves your face clean and under control, and yes, I do agree with this advertising. However, just give Cetaphil one more lather, and you will reach the same cleanliness you had with Clean and Clear, and you will feel like you are babying your skin. Clean and Clear comes in pretty colors such as blue and pink. Cetaphil only comes in white and is in less extravagant packaging. You know what that means. Yes, on average, Cetaphil is less expensive than Clean and Clear, and other popular skin cleansers.
