I went into trying Kypris’ Cleanser Concentrate with such high hopes. It promised the “ideal cleanse” with a “totally new” experience in a gel-cream format that could be applied onto dry or damp skin. At first use, it was like a mediocre first date where some things were pretty cool, but the overall experience was more awkward than anything.
Cool things: The packaging is inspired by feminist art, I’m not very deep so I can’t say how the geometric shapes are connected but I dug the gold etching on the glass jar. The scent was subtle and smelled like roses in a very neutral and controlled way. The cream was bouncy and light which made it easy to scoop and also distribute over skin.
Awkward things: Still not sure how this works, tried it with dry and damp face and it feels like moving a moisturizer over skin. Don’t think anyone will hate the way this cleanser performs, but also don’t think anyone is going to be blown away by it either where they won’t want to give another cleanser a shot after this runs out.
The hope was that it would be like the Glossier Milky Jelly Cleanser which has a similar texture and scent but the Kypris Cleanser didn’t cleanse as well, each use culminating in an anticlimactic feeling of “that’s it?” For a cleanser, that’s not ideal.
But even if it doesn’t perform as well as the Glossier Cleanser, and even though it is over 3x more expensive at $64 for a jar , it’s a better quality product because of the green ingredients, right? Well, let’s talk about that.
A month into use (and by use, I mean interchanging between 3 different cleansers being tested on a daily basis so really.. not heavy usage), the cream started to change. I soon noticed curdling with yellow, yeasty chunks forming. A week afterward when I opened the container, the nice rose scent was replaced by a disgusting cheesy smell. It was obvious that the product was contaminated. I checked the use by period on the jar, which is surprisingly short at just 3 months. As a reference, for most big box retailers a period of 6 months is the minimum accepted standard. Even at that, my product was only 1 month old from when I got it so it should not have happened.
I discussed this with Spirit Demerson (of Spirit Beauty Lounge) when we met up in New York, who suggested that the open jar packaging may make it more susceptible to contamination and degradation. Fair point, which is also why I only use a scooper for jar products and never double-dip. Comparatively, I’ve seen demos online where fingers are used which makes me quite concerned that this easily contaminated product is sitting on the shelves of many homes right now. The problem is that bacteria contaminated products can cause significant harm from causing red eye to spreading illness, and they may not always be detectable.
Herein lies an underlying issue with the current state of “green” beauty: preservatives such as parabens are to be avoided, even it’s replacement, phenoxyethanol is not something we want to see in an ingredients list. But many times with green beauty, the avoidance of established protocols that are used to ensure stability and safety means trying new, less proven methods, and for customers it means trusting that the person creating the products knows what they’re doing even though the majority of product creators don’t seem to have a relevant background.
I was especially surprised that my first (and hopefully only) experience with contamination happened with Kypris because their products are made in a lab which should have more checks and balances than home-made products and their founder espouses the integrity, ingredient superiority, and scientifically sound nature of their formulas so fervently in interviews and on social media.
So yes, there are no parabens, phenoxyethanol or other things that green customers find disturbing. But it’s performance leaves much to be desired and much more important is that the formula does not seem to be stable or safe in terms of lacking an adequate preservation system to prevent contamination.
For green products to become legitimate, it needs to be as reliable, effective, and even more safe than the traditional products it seeks to replace. This product is not going to move the needle forward, but if you’d like to give it a try yourself: