Nurse practitioner Jordan Harper founded Barefaced skincare with the goal of bringing the best advice, clinical research, and products together to help you find a long-term skincare routine you can trust.
You’ll notice that the Barefaced skincare products are formulated with evidence-based ingredients like alpha hydroxy acids (AHAs), niacinamide, hyaluronic acid, and many more.
But how well do these products really perform? To answer that question, we’ll have to look at both the product formulations and customer reviews. And that’s exactly what we’ll cover in this Barefaced skincare review, so let’s get started.
What Are The Top 10 Best Barefaced Skincare Products?
The Barefaced skincare collection includes everything you would need to create a complete regimen, including cleansers, toners, exfoliants, peels, masks, serums, moisturizers, sunscreens, and more. Here’s a breakdown of the top 10 best Barefaced skincare products.
Barefaced Toning Pads
BarefacedToning Pads are packed with exfoliating acids, antioxidants, and calming ingredients to help tackle uneven skin texture, clogged pores, dullness, and more.
A blend of three alpha hydroxy acids (AHAs) — glycolic, lactic, and mandelic acid — exfoliate the skin by enhancing the breakdown of dead skin cells and increasing the rate of cell turnover, leading to smoother, more radiant skin.
The formula also includes salicylic acid, a beta hydroxy acid (BHA) that is known for penetrating deep into pores to help clear away gunk (like dead skin cells and excess oil) that could lead to blemishes.
We love that these Toning Pads are also infused with soothing and hydrating ingredients, like aloe vera, green tea, and glycerin.
Plus, swiping one of these pads onto skin after cleansing can help the rest of the products in your routine penetrate better.
Bottom Line: A blend of AHAs is combined with the BHA salicylic acid in the BarefacedToning Pads to exfoliate skin and promote smoother, more radiant skin.
Barefaced Toning Pads II
The brand took their original pads up a notch with higher concentrations of acids in the Toning Pads II.
The formulations are nearly identical, with the main difference being that Toning Pads II contain 5% glycolic acid, whereas the original Toning Pads have only 2% glycolic acid.
If you’ve never used AHAs in your skincare routine before, it’s best to start with the original Barefaced Toning Pads to prevent skin irritation.
Bottom Line: Barefaced Toning Pads II have the same formulation as the original pads except with a higher concentration of glycolic acid (5%).
Barefaced Glow Peel Pads
This at-home chemical peel helps you achieve bright, clear skin with 15% glycolic acid. Glycolic acid is considered to be the strongest AHA because it has the smallest molecular size.
So why should you care about molecular size? Molecular size matters because the smaller a molecule, the more easily it gets into the skin. Thus, glycolic acid penetrates the skin better and faster than all of the other AHAs.
We love that glycolic acid is combined with the emollient squalane. Squalane is super-light, non-greasy, and sinks into the skin fast, yet it helps the skin to instantly feel soft and moisturized.
The Glow Peel Pads can also be used anywhere on the body to improve rough, bumpy skin.
Bottom Line: Barefaced Glow Peel Pads offer strong exfoliation with 15% glycolic acid, but the inclusion of squalane in the formula should help to prevent skin dryness and peeling.
Barefaced Tinted Protection SPF 50+
Finding a mineral sunscreen that doesn’t feel greasy or leave you looking as pale as a ghost can be challenging, although not impossible. This Barefaced sunscreen promises to overcome those problems with their weightless formula and universal tint.
The mineral sunscreen ingredients zinc oxide and titanium dioxide provide broad spectrum SPF 50+ protection to help prevent sun damage.
A bonus is that the formula is packed with additional ingredients to promote healthier skin. For instance, there’s skin-brightening niacinamide, lactic and hyaluronic acid for added hydration, and caffeine for antioxidant protection.
Bottom Line: This Barefaced sunscreen not only provides broad spectrum SPF 50+ protection with 100% mineral ingredients, but also improves the health of your skin over time with niacinamide, lactic acid, hyaluronic acid, and caffeine.
Barefaced Sheer Protection SPF 50+
If you aren’t into tinted sunscreens, then the BarefacedSheer Protection SPF 50+ formula is right for you. It contains the same superstar ingredients as the brand’s tinted sunscreen, including zinc oxide, titanium dioxide, niacinamide, lactic acid, hyaluronic acid, and caffeine. The main difference is that this product is not tinted; it dries to a sheer, natural finish.
Bottom Line: Barefaced Sheer Protection SPF 50+ provides broad spectrum sun protection with mineral sunscreens while creating a sheer, natural finish.
Barefaced Hydrating Lotion
Barefaced Hydrating Lotion is designed to strengthen and nourish your skin’s moisture barrier, reduce redness, and brighten dull skin.
One of the key ingredients in this lotion is niacinamide, the amide form of vitamin B3. In our opinion, niacinamide is one of the best skincare ingredients since it can provide so many benefits.
For example, a publication in the Journal of Clinical and Aesthetic Dermatology, states that niacinamide can repair the skin barrier and improve skin moisture, as well as reduce inflammation, blotchiness, hyperpigmentation, acne, and wrinkling. Pretty impressive, right?
This lotion is packed with many more beneficial ingredients, such as a variety of antioxidants. There’s resveratrol, EGCG (derived from green tea), caffeine, and vitamin E. These antioxidants protect your skin from environmental free radical damage. This is important because the harmful effects of free radicals occur as direct chemical alterations of the cellular DNA, the cell membrane, and cellular proteins, including collagen.
Lastly, BarefacedHydration Lotion includes ceramides to strengthen the skin barrier, while acetyl tetrapeptide-2 increases collagen and elastin to promote more youthful-looking skin.
Bottom Line: Skin-brightening niacinamide is combined with antioxidants, ceramides, and a peptide, creating a lotion that tackles multiple skin concerns at the same time.
Barefaced Retinal Skin Therapy
If we told you there’s an ingredient that’s more potent than retinol — but much better tolerated — would you believe us? Well, it’s true, and that ingredient is retinaldehyde.
Here’s why retinaldehyde is more potent than retinol: For any vitamin A derivative to be effective, it must first convert into retinoic acid. For example, retinol must be converted to retinaldehyde and then to retinoic acid. As you can see, retinaldehyde offers more effectiveness than retinol because it’s one step closer to retinoic acid.
So what benefits can you expect from retinaldehyde? It works by promoting skin cell turnover and stimulating collagen synthesis, which in turn improves skin tone, unclogs pores, and slows down the formation of lines and wrinkles.
Plus, the formula also includes bakuchiol, a plant extract that’s been shown to provide many of the same benefits as retinol.
Lastly, the brand ensures that your skin will be soft and moisturized after using this treatment with the inclusion of several silicones along with shea butter, jojoba oil, and argan oil.
Bottom Line: Retinaldehyde is the star ingredient in this treatment, offering more potent anti-aging benefits than retinol but without the irritation!
Barefaced Overachiever
With a name like Overachiever, you know that this product is going to deliver results. Designed for the skin minimalist who only wants one serum to do the most, Barefaced Overachiever is able to hydrate skin, reduce redness and puffiness, improve skin texture, reduce the appearance of fine lines and pores, stimulate cellular turnover, and enhances the efficacy of your other skincare products.
This serum is able to provide all of these benefits thanks to its impressive line up of key ingredients, including resveratrol, bakuchiol, azelaic acid, green tea, caffeine, hyaluronic acid, and peptides.
And, like all Barefaced skincare products, it’s free from harmful ingredients like parabens, fragrance, phthalates, sulfates, artificial dyes, mineral oil, and formaldehyde donors.
Bottom Line: The Overachiever lives up to its name by providing more than 5 benefits in one product with key ingredients like resveratrol, bakuchiol, azelaic acid, green tea, caffeine, hyaluronic acid, and peptides.
Barefaced Liquid Gold
Barefaced Liquid Gold isn’t your average vitamin C serum. Unlike traditional vitamin C serums which are water based and can be drying, Liquid Gold is a micro-emulsion formulated with coconut based esters to provide long-term hydration.
A potent concentration of 15% L-ascorbic acid (the active form of vitamin C) is combined with kakadu plum extract, the richest vitamin C source of any fruit. In fact, this superfruit contains up to 100 times the pure vitamin C content of an orange.
Vitamin C is one of the best skin care ingredients to use because of its ability to protect the skin from free radicals, stimulate collagen production, brighten the complexion, and decrease the appearance of dark spots through inhibition of the enzyme tyrosinase.
And we love that the brand included plenty of botanical extracts to assist in brightening and hydrating. For instance, mulberry and turmeric brighten the skin while avocado extract conditions and improves skin’s radiance.
Bottom Line: Barefaced Liquid Gold includes a potent 15% concentration of L-ascorbic acid to help fade dark spots, brighten the complexion, and increase skin firmness.
Barefaced Brightening Serum
Like all of the Barefaced skincare products we’ve discussed so far, the Brightening Serum formula doesn’t disappoint. It’s formulated with an all star lineup of brightening ingredients that are clinically proven to minimize stubborn dark spots with continued use.
For instance, you’ll find kojic acid, alpha-arbutin, azelaic acid, bearberry leaf, and licorice root extract in this serum. All of these ingredients have research to support their skin-brightening benefits.
Plus, there’s several antioxidants in this formula, like Pterocarpus Marsupium bark extract to brighten discoloration, and vitamin E to protect skin from environmental free radicals.
To round out the formula, the brand has included sodium hyaluronate (the salt form of hyaluronic acid) to increase hydration and give the skin a more plump appearance.
Bottom Line: Barefaced Brightening Serum is formulated to fade dark spots and brighten the complexion with a plethora of key ingredients, including kojic acid, alpha-arbutin, azelaic acid, bearberry leaf, licorice root, and more.
What Are The Key Ingredients in Barefaced Skincare Products?
As you can probably tell from our introductions to the Barefaced skincare products in the last section, this brand focuses on using evidence-based ingredients in their products, including:
- Alpha Hydroxy Acids (AHAs)
- Azelaic Acid
- Beta Hydroxy Acids (BHAs)
- Hyaluronic Acid
- Peptides
- Retinaldehyde
- Niacinamide
- Vitamin C
- Vitamin E
All of these ingredients have research to support their benefits when applied to the skin.
The brand combines these ingredients with plenty of soothing botanicals, such as turmeric and green tea, as well as skin-brightening ingredients like kojic acid, alpha-arbutin, azelaic acid, licorice root, and bearberry leaf.
We also love that the Barefaced skincare products are formulated without harmful ingredients like fragrance, parabens, phthalates, sulfates, artificial dyes, and formaldehyde donors.
How Much Do Barefaced Skincare Products Cost?
Barefaced skincare products are in the mid- to high-range in terms of cost. For example, the Barefaced Toning Pads II cost $49 USD for 60 pads, while the brand’s most expensive product is the Barefaced Overachiever at $150 for just 1 fl oz.
Where to Buy Barefaced Skincare Products?
Barefaced skincare products are sold on the brand’s website (barefaced.com).
Is Barefaced Skincare Cruelty Free?
Yes, all Barefaced skincare products are cruelty free.
Our Verdict
Overall, we think that Barefaced skincare products are formulated well with evidence-based ingredients, and the only drawback is the mid to high price point.
Pros
- Products are formulated with evidence-based ingredients (i.e. azelaic acid, niacinamide, bakuchiol, hyaluronic acid, etc.)
- Products are free from parabens, fragrance, phthalates, sulfates, artificial dyes, and formaldehyde donors.
- Many positive Barefaced reviews
Cons
- Some products are expensive
References:
J Clin Aesthet Dermatol. 2010 Feb; 3(2): 22–41
