The PanOxyl Bar is a four ounce face-washing bar that stresses its dissimilarity to soap and is available online through many third party vendors and also in many drug stores such as Walgreens. According to the company, it is pH balanced and will not clog your pores the way a typical bar of soap will. Instead the company says that the PanOxyl Bar will “gently” yet effectively wash away your acne whether you are male or female. While the product may indeed do some good in the fight against acne, you should take a closer look at the ingredients of this “gentle” face wash before you consider buying it.

Ingredients

According to the information found about the product online, the PanOxyl Bar will “gently” wash away your acne. A closer look at the ingredients definitely tells a much different tale. The following are the not so gentle ingredients of the product:

* Benzoyl Peroxide 5% or 10% depending on what you buy.
* Cetearyl Alcohol
* Cocamidopropyl Betaine
* Glycerin
* Hydrogenated Castor Oil
* Lactic Acid
* Mineral Oil
* PEG-14M
* Potassium Lauryl Sulfate
* Purified Water
* Silica
* Sodium Lauryl Sulfate
* Titanium Dioxide
* Corn Starch – Zea Mays

Of the 14 ingredients listed, half of them can and most likely will irritate your skin. Benzoyl Peroxide, Cetearyl Alcohol, Glycerin, Potassium Lauryl Sulfate, Sodium Lauryl Sulfate, and Titanium Dioxide all have the ability to irritate the skin and in certain skin types may make the situation worse. In fact, Benzoyl Peroxide is known very well in the world of acne fighting products to have a “bleaching” effect on the clothes and even the eyebrows.

Being pH Balanced

This acne product, like many others available for sale today, uses fancy terms to make it sound legitimate. The PanOxyl Bar is said to be “pH balanced” and thus more effective, but the term is grossly misrepresented. In life, everything has a pH that is represented by a number. The pH scale itself is simply a measure of whether a substance is more acidic or more alkaline. This is represented with a number from one to 14. The lower the number the more acidic the substance is and the higher the number the more alkaline it is. While every substance is different, in order to be in perfect pH balance, it would have to have a number of seven and thus be neutral. While it is not said what number on the pH scale the PanOxyl Bar is, it is highly doubtful that with all the acidic ingredients it contains that it would be a seven.

Conclusion

If you want bleached eyebrows, bleached clothing, dry irritated skin, and plenty of red blotches where your acne used to be than this may be the product for you. By its own admission in the “warnings” section online, the ingredients in the PanOxyl Bar may irritate and dry your skin. What they should warn is that it can flat out burn your skin. While some of the ingredients in the product have been somewhat effective in fighting acne, they can also be found in many other over-the-counter products available today for a lot less money. But when you think about it, is a blotchy red face better than one that has acne? If you think so then by all means, burn away and if you don’t think so then perhaps you should just stay away.