Yusma Beauty Face Wash 60g

• Coco betaine sits above both sulphates. Third on the list, which is why this one does not leave the tight, squeaky finish that others do.
• The tea tree is real, and it is seventeenth. Enough to smell, not enough to treat a breakout in thirty seconds of contact.
• Six actives, all below the fragrance. Alpha arbutin, argireline and avocado oil are leave-on ingredients doing a rinse-off job here.
• No grit, no acid, no enzyme. So it does not exfoliate, whatever the front of the tube says, and there is no scrub particle anywhere.
• It smells strongly medicinal. Tea tree, lemon and camphor cluster at the bottom of the list, and together they are the smell people notice first.

Twenty entries. Five of them explain how this wash behaves; the ones on the front of the tube mostly do not.

• Cocamidopropyl betaine — an amphoteric surfactant, third on the list and above both sulphates. It cleans in its own right and softens what follows it.
• Tea tree oil — seventeenth of twenty, in a product that leaves your face in half a minute. Real, but a signature rather than a dose.
• Avocado oil — the oil, not the extract used in the matching cream. Fourteenth, and most of it goes down the drain with the foam.
• Camphor — the sharp note you actually feel. It is easy to mistake that sensation for the tea tree doing something, and they are unrelated.
• Phenoxyethanol — the single preservative holding a water-

1. Wet your face with lukewarm water and shake your hands off.
2. Squeeze a pea-sized amount and build the lather in your palms before it reaches your face.
3. Work it over the face for twenty to thirty seconds. Longer does not extract more from the tea tree.
4. Rinse until the slip has gone, then pat dry.
5. Apply your treatment step next, while the skin is damp. The leave-on version of these actives is where alpha arbutin and argireline get the contact time they need.

Is this an exfoliating face wash?

No. There is no acid, no grit and no enzyme in the twenty ingredients — nothing that loosens or removes dead skin. The catalogue copy says “deep exfoliation”, and the formula does not support it. If exfoliation is what you want, the scrub with walnut shell in it is the product in this range that actually does it.

Should I use a face wash or exfoliate first?

Wash first, then exfoliate. A cleanser takes off the oil and sunscreen sitting on top; exfoliating through that layer wastes the exfoliant and drags grit across a dirty surface. Twice a week is enough for most people, and never on the same day as a strong active.

How much tea tree oil is actually in it?

The tube does not say, and seventeenth position out of twenty tells you it is a small amount. Studies on tea tree oil for acne use it at concentrations that stay on the skin for hours. A rinse-off at an unstated fraction of a percent is a different proposition entirely.

Why does it smell so strong?

Three ingredients sit together at the bottom of the list — tea tree oil, lemon extract and camphor — and all three are aromatic. Add the fragrance at position twelve and you get a sharp, clinical smell. Plenty of people buy it for exactly that, which is a fair reason.

Is argireline in a face wash doing anything?

Realistically, no. Argireline is a peptide that works on expression lines and needs hours of uninterrupted contact to do it. Sixteenth on the list of a product you rinse off after thirty seconds, it cannot deliver that. It belongs in a cream or a serum, and in this range it is in both.

I bought this for the alpha arbutin. Am I wasting it?

Mostly, yes, in this format. Alpha arbutin works by accumulating in the skin over weeks, which a rinse-off cannot do. It is not harmful and it is not a con — it just cannot deliver here. The matching Yusma cream carries the same active where it can stay on the skin overnight.

What makes this one milder than the other Face Fresh washes?

Ingredient order. Every other wash in the line-up puts its sulphates near the top with nothing above them. Here cocamidopropyl betaine sits third and aloe vera fifth, both ahead of the detergents, so the finish is softer. Compare it against the full cleanser line-up if you want the range in one place.

Is the aloe near the top doing anything?

More than most aloe in a face wash. Fifth on the list is high enough to affect how the product feels rather than just how it reads. It will not moisturise your skin — nothing in a rinse-off does — but it is part of why this wash does not leave you tight.