In this week’s skincare review, we are taking a closer look at the The Ordinary Glycolic Acid. This glycolic acid toner is one that is very much raved about in the beauty community as a good affordable exfoliant. With my sensitive skin, chemical exfoliants can be difficult to get right and so far I had only tried lactic acids. Those worked quite well but I was hoping that my skin could handle a bit more. This being affordable, I figured I could give it a try. Unfortunately this didn’t work for me.
Skincare review: The Ordinary Glycolic Acid 7% Toning Solution
The Ordinary is a brand that showed that effective skincare doesn’t have to be expensive. Aimed at giving you active ingredients, with simple no frills packaging the brand has since seen many brands copying the ideas. Their Glycolic Toner is a product that is quite hyped up in the range. It retails for €11.75 and is quite widely available. It is often recommended not only as a skincare product, but it could even work as a deodorant (fun fact). I didn’t try it for that purpose and I can say this was a bit much for my overly sensitive skin no matter how little I used.
What does this product have to offer?
The reason I wanted to try this was because I had heard that depending on what your skin likes, it’s best to ease yourself into the use of chemical exfoliants. Since I have dry/ dehydrated, sensitive skin, I know I can’t just slap something on and so I was a bit wary of this. That’s why I first used some lactic acids and when my skin reacted well to some of the higher concentrations, I decided to try this. This should help with dull skin, uneven skin tone and combat skin texture. It is for that last promise that I wanted to try this. I have found that chemical exfoliants are great for combating my redness and milia and so I was hoping this would work for that.
What is the ingredients list like?
Let’s have a look at the ingredients list:
Aqua (Water), Glycolic Acid, Rosa damascena flower water, Centaurea cyanus flower water, Aloe Barbadensis Leaf Water, Propanediol, Glycerin, Triethanolamine, Aminomethyl Propanol, Panax Ginseng Root Extract, Tasmannia Lanceolata Fruit/Leaf Extract, Aspartic Acid, Alanine, Glycine, Serine, Valine, Isoleucine, Proline, Threonine, Histidine, Phenylalanine, Glutamic Acid, Arginine, PCA, Sodium PCA, Sodium Lactate, Fructose, Glucose, Sucrose, Urea, Hexyl Nicotinate, Dextrin, Citric Acid, Polysorbate 20, Gellan Gum, Trisodium Ethylenediamine Disuccinate, Sodium Chloride, Hexylene Glycol, Potassium Sorbate, Sodium Benzoate, 1,2-Hexanediol, Caprylyl Glycol.
The glycolic acid is right up there, so you know you’ll get enough for the product. The next ingredients on the list are some different extracts to help the product. There are a lot of ingredients here that don’t mean much to me, but it is good to know that with any chemical exfoliant it is always recommended to use a sunscreen and to not use it too often. The directions here state it should be used no more than once a day and always at night. On the Douglas website it is stated this should be used 3 times a week. I used this once a week when I was testing it out.
What this product did for my skin?
To instantly answer that question: absolutely nothing! This is quite possibly the worst skincare product I have tried in a long time. It just isn’t right for my skin type. Every time I used this, this just felt like it was burning off my skin. It got to the point where it irritated my eyes, even if I didn’t apply this anywhere close to the eye area. Whenever I used this my skin felt tight as if it had been stripped of all of its oils and that I have learned is a warning sign that my skin doesn’t like the products at all. And yes, that was the effect even with use once a week where I put some of the product on a cotton pad and swiped it across my face. So it didn’t even go onto my skin directly.
My final thoughts
Alas! The Ordinary Glycolic Toner didn’t work for me. It was far too intense for my sensitive skin. I kept using it for a few weeks hoping I could get my skin to get used to it like I did with the lactic acids, vitamin cs and retinoids I have used in the past. Those were all successful but with this my skin got worse instead of better. Every time I used it my skin got more red and angry looking and while using this I felt no moisturizer was rich enough to help my skin to calm down. So this is a big no for me and I had to stop using it before it truly damaged my skin.
Would I recommend The Ordinary Glycolic Acid Toning Solution?
That totally depends. At this price point I don’t think it will be much of a problem if you want to try this. You get heaps of product and so if it works for you it will be a good bang for your buck. However this will not work for everyone and if you have sensitive skin like me I would definitely recommend doing a patch test first and being very gentle when you do decide to start using it.