My favorite cleanser is Purity Made Simple by Philosophy. I dreaded looking up the chemical make up of this product because Purity performs incredibly well. It’s a deep pore cleanser, keeps acne at bay, is gentle, smells nice, has a great texture, removes make up very well including eye make up, and works well with the Clairsonic brush. I’d glance with one eye shut at the long list of hard to pronounce, foreign ingredients and sigh before using it to whisk off my make up.

Yellow 5? Why oh why do these companies need to use dyes? The color of Purity isn’t appealing to me as it is, so I just don’t get why this is added.

It turns out Purity is on the lower end of the toxicity scale at SkinDeep, scoring a 4 out of 10. Not a horrible score, but I would be happier if it scored lower since I use it 1-2 times a day. These bloggers (links below) have a good analysis of Purity Made Simple with cost breakdown and chemical warnings.

http://toxicless.blogspot.com/2012/08/face-wash-philosophy-vs-alaffia.html#more

http://www.truthinaging.com/review/the-irony-of-philosophys-purity-made-simple-facial-cleanser

It certainly makes me uneasy about regularly using this product, but I’m faced with a familiar conundrum. Do we blindly sacrifice performance for lower toxins? I will finish off what I currently have and try something new in the organic, low toxin realm of products. If I dont find something that works, I’m probably going to go back.

Two important points:

1 – for how long my 16 ounce bottle lasted me (almost a year) it turned out to be good value for its high price tag coming in at $2.50 a month.

2 – one toxic ingredient added (imidazolidinyl urea) is what makes a product like this stay good on the shelf for a year, keeping the cost lower for consumers.