Avène Cleansing Foam and Mattifying Toner Skincare Review

Avène is a French skincare brand famous for its thermal water, which has a bunch of cool effects. Avene’s skincare products are based around their famous thermal water. There’s a focus on gentle skincare for sensitive skin that doesn’t overly irritate or strip the skin. I recently tested Avene’s Cleansing Foam and Cleanance Mat Mattifying Toner. Both products have Avene thermal water as the main ingredient.

The Cleansing Foam is recommended for normal to combination sensitive skin. Its ingredients are:

Avene Thermal Spring Water (Avene Aqua), Water (Aqua), Sodium Cocoamphoacetate, Sodium Cocoyl Glutamate, Lactic Acid, Citric Acid, Disodium EDTA, Fragrance (Parfum), Glutamic Acid, Propylene Glycol, Sodium Benzoate, Sodium Chloride.

The Cleansing Foam contains the surfactants sodium cocoamphoacetate and sodium cocoyl glutamate. Sodium cocoamphoacetate is an amphoteric or zwitterionic surfactant, whereas sodium cocoyl glutamate is an anionic surfactant. Anionic surfactants are quite damaging to skin as they are very good at stripping oil and denaturing skin proteins, but they’re also great at getting you clean and foaming. However, in combination with an amphoteric surfactant, they cause a lot less damage, so this surfactant combination makes a lot of sense in this cleansing foam.

The foam also comes in a foaming pump, where the product is mixed with air before it comes out so you don’t have to lather it. I love these pumps because it means the product doesn’t have to contain as much damaging anionic surfactants to still get a foam that’s easy to use, plus I end up using a lot less product.

Despite the gentleness, I found that this product still managed to clean thoroughly and get all my make-up off without making my skin feel stripped and tight afterwards. The only thing about this cleanser that I’m not a fan of is the fragrance – it’s an old-school soapy scent, and it’s a bit on the strong side, which seems like an unnecessary addition to a product designed for sensitive skin. But since it’s a wash-off product, it’s a lot less of a worry.

Avene’s Cleanance Mat Mattifying Toner ingredients list is:

Avene Thermal Spring Water (Avene Aqua), Dipropylene Glycol, SD Alcohol 39-C (Alcohol Denat), Zinc Gluconate, Fragrance (Parfum), Glyceryl Laurate, PEG-40 Hydrogenated Castor Oil, PPG-26-Butheth-26, Salicylic Acid, Stearalkonium Hectorite, Triethanolamine

This toner contains anti-inflammatory zinc gluconate. It also contains glyceryl laureate, also known as monolaurin, which is essentially a molecule of coconut oil with two of the lauric acid branches removed. Monolaurin has been found to be antibacterial; Avene also claims that it suppresses sebum.

Having oily skin, I get really excited every time a product promises to reduce sebum! Unfortunately, this toner only reduces my oiliness for maybe an extra hour or so, which is pretty powerful as far as sebum control goes, but it’s not really enough to prevent me from blotting endlessly throughout the day. There’s a fair bit of alcohol in this toner as well. I didn’t really notice any extra dehydration when using it, but I don’t know how it’ll go long-term.

The Avene products were provided for review, which did not affect my opinion. This post also contains affiliate links – if you decide to click through and support Lab Muffin financially, thank you! For more information, see Disclosure Policy.