Neutrogena Scrubs: Deep Clean vs. Deep Clean

If you girls don't already know it by now, I'll just refresh your memory a little, and tell you that my all-time HG scrub is the Neutrogena Deep Clean Gentle Scrub. I loves it. Very much. There, now you know.

So on one of our drugstore aisle perusing missions, Kahani and I spotted this - Neutrogena Deep Clean Blackhead Eliminating Daily Scrub (hereafter known as Daily Scrub).

We took a look at it. Looked at the product through the transparent packaging, ran through its list of ingredients. It really looked very similar to the Deep Clean Gentle Scrub. Then we checked out the price (thinking that if that was also about the same, we'd pick a tube up), and there lay the difference. A 100g tube of Daily Scrub was RM19.90, while the original Gentle Scrub cost only RM13.90 for 120g!

The Chinese (Hokkien, in particular) in us took dominance and decided that the new product was just that bit too pricey for a buy-and-compare spree.

A few weeks later though, I came across the scrub again. This time at a discounted RM16.90. Hello you! And brought it home.

So, same difference?

Look and texture:

(Can you guess which is which? Looks about the same, don't they? Right: Gentle Scrub, Left: Daily Scrub.)

In terms of how the products look like, they looks mighty similar alright. Both are gel-textured. Both have orange microbeads in them, and both have a gentle grainy feel. They even have the same fresh scent.

Claims:



Both claim to be blackhead-fighting, and will thoroughly remove dirt and impurities from the skin. Both claim to be dermatologist tested, oil-free, allergy tested, and non-comodogenic. Gentle Scrub claims to also be soap-free.

Ingredients:

(Deep Clean Blackhead Eliminating Daily Scrub)

(Deep Clean Gentle Scrub)

Both scrubs have the same top three ingredients, and both contain salicylic acid, which will help remove dead skin cells. Both also contain beta-hydroxy acid, which penetrates deep into pores to help clear and prevent blackheads. Daily Scrub, however, further boasts of containing cedarwood extract, which is known to help with oily skin and acne.

Performance: I've been using both rather frequently, and I really can't tell how one scrub works differently from the other. Both clean and exfoliate my face well enough (I like it enough to have run through several tubes now), and both are gentle enough to be used daily. Sometimes if I really really need it, I even scrub twice a day - morning and night. Using it so often with Cetaphil, my HG cleanser now, my face has so far stayed generally clear and contentedly happy. Happy enough that I've been able to go all lazy and skip using my Neem face mask for weeks on end.

Verdict: So, in an interesting case of Deep Clean vs Deep Clean (sorry for legalish, brain's still stuck at work), I think both work about the same. But for the RM6 price difference, I think I'll be sticking with the original Deep Clean. There just isn't enough Wow-power in the rebranded scrub to justifty the price mark-up.

Same difference, indeed. Well... almost.