Review: DHC Pore Cleansing Oil

DHC‘s Deep Cleansing Oil is one of the products the brand is famous for (alongside Olive Virgin Oil). The brand also features a few other cleansers, including Water-Friendly Cleansing Oil, New Mild Touch Cleansing Oil and Pore Cleansing Oil. While the first two are not available in the UK, Pore Cleansing Oil has recently been launched in the UK. (New Mild Touch Cleansing Oil and Pore Cleansing Oil are available in the US.)

Pore Cleansing Oil (150ml, ¥2000 in Japan, £25 in the UK, $31 in the US) was launched in Japan in August 2011, and it is part of the brand’s Pore range, which is designed to minimize the appearance of pores.

The product does not really have an oil consistency. Instead, it has a liquid-y gel consistency. (DHC’s UK website describes its texture as “serum-like”.) It is fairly malleable and it is not as thick as many of the cleansing gels I have tried. It dissolves makeup fairly efficiently, rinses reasonably well and leaves a moist (but not oily) feel on the skin. (The moist feel is probably due to glycerin, which is second on the ingredient list. Some people might not like the slippery feel on the skin.)

The product contains coconut oil, argania spinosa (argan) kernel oil, evening primrose oil, olive fruit oil, grape seed oil, jojoba seed oil, sesame seed oil and rice bran oil. However, none of them is towards the top of the ingredient list. Based on the ingredients and the consistency, I would describe the product as an oil-infused cleansing gel, not a cleansing oil.

(When the product is rinsed off, the water doesn’t turn very milky. In some cases, it can mean that the oil does not emulsify well. In this case, it is an indication of the relatively low oil content.)

It contains grapefruit peel extract, orange peel extract, tangerine peel extract and lemon peel extract. All of them can cause skin irritation. (I am slightly less critical of these citrus extracts in facial cleansers because they don’t get to stay on the skin for very long.)

The product is paraben-free and does not contain mineral oil.

Overall, this is a decently formulated product that does the job. I think it will particularly appeal to those who use (or would like to use) a cleansing oil but don’t like how fiddly it can be. (It doesn’t dribble through your fingers or run down your face as you use it.) Even though it does work fairly well for me, I still generally prefer an oil-based cleanser to a gel-based one as an oil cleanser is usually more malleable and tends to cleanse more efficiently.

(The cleansing oil that I have been using is RMK’s Cleansing Oil S. I used previous versions of it (Cleansing Oil and Cleansing Oil N) for quite a few years. The review of Cleansing Oil S is based on a sample provided by RMK when it was launched, and I have been purchasing it since then. Another cleansing oil I would recommend is Muji’s Mild Oil Cleansing, but it is currently not available in the UK.)

DHC’s Pore range also includes:

– Pore Face Wash (120g, ¥1715, £20)
– Pore Lotion (120ml, ¥2667, £28)
– Pore Milk (80ml, ¥2667, £28)
– Pore Essence (used as the last step in the skincare routine, 20g, ¥2667, £28)
– Pore Triple Care Powder (setting powder, touch-up powder & night treatment powder, 8g, ¥2191, not available in the UK)

(The product featured in this article is provided by DHC.)

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