Up until I bought this product about a month ago, I had been committing the ultimate beauty sin of using wipes to both remove make up and cleanse. I decided it was time to break this habit and progress to a proper cleanser. I started with a very gentle product first off as I didn’t know how my skin would react.

La Roche-Posay is a skin care brand popular with dermatologists. The Physiological Cleansing Gel is a cleanser designed for dry or sensitive skin. It is soap-free, alcohol-free and colorant-free so it is very gentle on your skin. It certainly hasn’t irritated my skin in any way – no itchiness, excess dryness or breakouts.

The cleanser is a fairly thick consistency so you don’t need to use a lot. One or two pumps should be fine. I have been using one pump in the morning and one in the evening. You wash your face with water, apply the cleanser all over, and then wash it off. I was sort of expecting the cleanser to foam, at least a little bit, but it doesn’t. It stays an almost slimy gel consistency, which I am not particularly fond of personally. It doesn’t have a strong fragrance – there is perhaps the slightest hint of a fresh, clean smelling scent, but nothing overpowering.

In terms of cleansing, this product doesn’t necessarily seem to be doing much when you apply it to your skin, however, this is probably a psychological effect of the fact it doesn’t foam or change consistency in any way so you can’t actually see it doing anything. Having said that, once the product is washed off my skin, my skin does feel clean and fresher. It perhaps feels a little tight around the upper cheeks after it has first dried.

The main downside to this cleanser is, because it is a very gentle formula, it is not particularly good at removing make up. I tried it a couple of times, but my eye make up in particular hardly seemed to budge and it wouldn’t even touch waterproof mascara. Since then I have been taking my make up off in the evening with a wipe first and then using this cleanser afterwards.

I guess the other disadvantage to this product would be the price. It retails for around £12 (I believe you can get it for £8 on the Escentual website at the moment), which I think is quite a lot of money for a cleanser if you then have to buy a separate product to remove make up.

Would I re-purchase this product? Personally no – it’s just not for me. I think my skin can cope with, and would probably benefit from, a stronger cleanser. However, I would recommend this product if you have dry or very sensitive skin and are looking for a basic cleanser to use after you have removed most of your make up.