COSRX Pure Fit Cica Creamy Foam Cleanser 150ml

COSRX Pure Fit Cica Creamy Foam Cleanser is the wash step of the Pure Fit Cica line. A pea-sized squeeze of dense cream whips into a tall, cushiony lather in wet hands, lifts the day's surface oil, sunscreen and grime, and rinses away without leaving a film behind.

The lather comes from a classic potassium-soap base. Myristic, palmitic, stearic and lauric acids neutralised by potassium hydroxide sit third through seventh on the label, just behind water and glycerin. That system foams generously from very little product and rinses very clean, which is why it suits skin that turns shiny by mid-afternoon more than skin that already feels tight after washing.

COSRX calls the soothing half Cica-7, and the number is literal rather than marketing shorthand. Seven centella entries appear on the panel: three botanical extracts drawn from the leaf, the root and the whole plant, then the four centella triterpenes asiatic acid, asiaticoside, madecassic acid and madecassoside. They sit low on the list, where soothing botanicals in a rinse-off product normally do.

Two things deserve a mention before you add it to a basket. The label carries no fragrance or parfum entry, but it does carry four essential oils - eucalyptus, lavender, mandarin and pine - so patch-test if aromatic plant oils have bothered you. And this is a wash rather than an exfoliant: no acid, clay or scrub particle is present, so it clears what is sitting on the surface and stops there.