When it comes to cleansers, I really only have three requirements:

It has to actually cleanse my skin. It can’t irritate my skin or eyes. I can’t actively hate using it.

You’d think with such a low bar it’s be really easy to find cleansers to use, but at this point in time, there are only three I use regularly: DHC’s Facial Wash, Aveeno’s Gentle Foaming Cleanser, and now the SU:M37 Rose Cleansing Stick. Generally, if a cleanser manages to pass the first bar – actually cleansing my skin – it will fail the second bar (irritation of the face and eyes) or simply drive me insane to use on a regular basis (all gel cleansers, ever. Also all cleansers with microbeads or whatever-those-little-grainy-things-are in them). So I’m happy to add another cleanser to my tiny list, although as usual, as soon as I like something, it is discontinued.

I’ve wanted to try the SU:M37 Rose Cleansing Stick for about eight months now, since I saw the product descripton on Sokoglam. At the time, it was perpetually out of stock on that site, so I took the opportunity to pick it up on sale from honestskin during their March sale. Of course, right after that skinandtonics did a bombshell review , so the stick sold out immediately everywhere, and now there are persistent rumors that the company is having some supply chain issues with the actual rose petals, so the chances of the product restocking are pretty much nil. This is par for the course for anything I like, so I can’t say I’m really surprised.

The SU:M37 Rose cleansing stick is exactly what it sounds like – a cleanser in stick form. It is in a tube that is nine cm (height) by 3.5 cm (diameter), and the whole product seems very sturdy and easy to hold in one’s hand. It is a pale apricot color, with rose petals in the mix, and indeed, it smells very strongly of roses. Generally I do not like strong scents in my cleanser – or in anything I use, to be honest – but the scent is not artificial, and fades quickly. I find it exceedingly gentle on my skin and eyes, and the rose petals, while adding some textural interest, do not really drag upon the skin. Although I would not say this is a joy to use – what cleanser ever is? – I will say that cleansing my face with this stick isn’t a chore. Additional bonus: the stick form is inherently non-messy. It’s very pleasant to not have face-soap residue everywhere on my bathroom counter, or to have a sticky-slick container to pack up when I travel. It’s also pleasant that the risk of any kind of leak is non-existent – that’s the worst part of using a pump system for a cleanser when traveling.

I’ve been using the stick twice a day for about three months now, and I think I have about a third of it left, so I expect about 5-6 months of use per stick. Since I paid about $20, that’s about $3-4 a month for cleanser, which isn’t a bad deal for high-end cleanser, in my opinion. I will note that my skin has improved appreciably since I started using it – it’s the only new product in my line-up this summer, so I am attributing the improvement in skin texture and overall sensitivity to the cleanser. I haven’t had a bad spontaneous flushing incident all summer! This was a pretty awesome surprise to me, since I’ve always sort of blown off the overblown claims of cleansers in general. However, I’m not sure if this improvement is due to any special characteristics of the cleanser in question, or if it’s just a matter of my skin barrier’s acid mantle healing over time . I’ll guess I’ll find out when I use the next cleanser, since the likeliness of even being able to re-purchase this product is pretty low. I will note that I didn’t find the stick awesome for make-up removal – required way too much rubbing of the eyes, and still didn’t work great. I personally would only use it as a straight cleanser, and not as a multi-purpose product.

Final thoughts: If this product were still widely available I would whole-heartedly recommend it as a cleanser. The average price at that time was about $20-30 depending on the retailer, which is normal for a high-end cleanser that will probably last over a half-year of twice daily use. However, given the extremely limited supply, and the correspondingly higher prices – $40-50 dollars, plus shipping, sometimes from some shady sellers – I can’t recommend picking this up. It’s nice, but it’s really not that nice. Try another high-end cleanser – there are actually lots of nice ones out there, especially if you don’t have baby vampire skin like me. However, if it turns out that SU:M37 is just retooling their factories to deal with increased demand (hey, a girl can dream, right?) and the price drops again, feel free to pick it up and give it a whirl!