My boyfriend has really great skin and doesn’t usually need any of my help. Sometimes, however, he feels dry or wants something to wash his face with that isn’t as intense as whatever I’m using at the time. We were at Rainbow Grocery and I thought that this Zia product HydraClean Face Wash, for men, would work out for him. And it did for a little while.

Here’s how he uses it:
– Only in the shower and not for shaving. Just a quick wash with his hands.

The upsides:
– It’s got a lot of natural ingredients.

The Company
– It’s made by a San Francisco company that was started by one woman in her kitchen (power to the people! power to the women! power to local products!).

– The company is focused on being Eco Friendly

The not-so-upsides:
Long term results
– He’s been breaking out a little bit in his chin area, which is probably helped by how he puts his face in his hand when at the computer, which is a lot of the time he’s awake. But, he’s always done the hand to face thing but only with this wash has he been so consistently breaking out.
– Initially, he liked the way it felt but after a month or so, it started to feel irritating to his skin, which is surprising to me given this statement from their website:

Zia Natural Skincare doesn’t contain any of the harsh or potentially harmful ingredients found in many other brands. Your skin is like a sponge that absorbs much of what it comes into contact with, so it’s best to avoid putting potentially harmful ingredients directly on your skin to eliminate the possibility that they will be absorbed into the body.

I have to say that the jury is still out on this one because he also started using this Zia for men lotion at the same time and I think it *might* be too rich for him. I’m going to continue the test of this cleanser by switching his lotion to see if that helps.

However, I would like to say that if you are looking for a manly cleanser for a man with “typical” male skin (thicker, oily) this is a great choice to start with as it’s gentle but effective and has a decent price point ($9.95 on their website).
I might have to have him try their Deep Moisture Repair Serum instead of the lotion to see if that mitigates the breakout issue [rubs hands together excitedly at getting to experiment]

Stay tuned!