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The Ordinary
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A review of the best and worst skincare products from The Ordinary.

The Ordinary Skincare Review: Your Guide to the Brand and the 21 Best Products to Try Now

Everything you need to know about the world’s number one skincare brand.

If you’re into skincare, then The Ordinary needs no introduction. Launched seven years ago by parent company DECIEM, it revolutionized the beauty industry by offering active ingredients in no-frills packaging at crazy-affordable prices. I repeat, crazy-affordable: many of the products are under $10!

It also raised the bar for transparency. Before The Ordinary, it was nearly impossible to find out a product’s ingredient list, unless you were holding the packaging in your hands. But when the brand not only published its ingredients online, but also listed the active concentrations in its product names, other companies had no choice but to follow.

No wonder The Ordinary has become the world’s most popular skincare brand according to Google search data.

To help you navigate the huge selection of products, I’ve put together this comprehensive review. Here’s what you need to know about the brand, and what’s really worth buying.

Brand Overview

The Ordinary

The Ordinary is all about “clinical formulations with integrity.”

Background

The Ordinary launched in 2016 as the 11th brand underneath the DECIEM umbrella. Its parent company was the brainchild of the late Brandon Truaxe, a Toronto-based entrepreneur who was known as “the beauty world’s most exciting disrupter.”

It all started when he spent four months working at a skincare lab as a co-op student. After observing the state of the beauty industry—and its lack of transparency and integrity—he decided to become a force for change.

In 2013, along with Nicola Kilner, he co-founded DECIEM (which is Latin for “10”). The idea was that it would be an incubator, and to simultaneously launch 10 different, science-backed beauty brands. 

But the concept for The Ordinary didn’t come until later—and the company never dreamed it would be so successful. According to Kilner: “The Ordinary only launched to make a marketing point [about the high markups in the beauty industry]. We never thought it would be a commercial brand. The idea was, let’s start to communicate these trusted ingredients because they’re so affordable.”1

Obviously, that message resonated with consumers, because The Ordinary is now considered the world’s most popular skincare brand, and had sales of $460 million in 2020 alone.2

Philosophy

Here’s how the company describes the brand philosophy:

“The Ordinary is an evolving collection of treatments offering familiar, effective clinical technologies positioned to raise pricing and communication integrity in skincare. The brand was created to celebrate integrity in its most humble and true form. Its offering is pioneering, not in the familiar technologies it uses, but in its honesty and integrity. The Ordinary is born to disallow commodity to be disguised as ingenuity.”

“The Ordinary exists to communicate with integrity and bring to market effective, more familiar technologies at honourable prices.”

Formulas

All products are formulated without:

  • Parabens
  • Sulfates
  • Mineral oil
  • Methylchloroisothiazolinone
  • Methylisothiazolinone
  • Animal oils
  • Coal tar dyes
  • Formaldehyde
  • Mercury
  • Oxybenzone

The Ordinary is also cruelty-free and vegan.

The 21 Best Skincare Products From The Ordinary

As a beauty editor, I’ve tested and evaluated the products from The Ordinary and compared them to a wide range of brands. Here are my top recommendations:

Best Cleanser: The Ordinary Glycolipid Cream Cleanser

The Ordinary Glycolipid Cream Cleanser

There are countless cleansers on the market, but only a handful that I’d recommend for all skin types. The Ordinary Glycolipid Cream Cleanser is one of them. It’s a creamy, non-foaming face wash formulated with a plant-derived glycolipid cleansing agent. So unlike sulfate-based cleansers, it’s extremely gentle.

This cleanser cleans your skin and removes makeup in one step—and it does so without disrupting your skin’s pH or moisture barrier. So there’s no dryness or tightness that will have you rushing to put on moisturizer, nor is there any residue. Often, cream cleansers leave a film behind, but this one rinses off completely with water. As for how well it works, I wear light makeup and it removes all traces. However, you may want to use a separate makeup remover beforehand for stubborn mascara.

How does it compare to the other cleansers in the line? The Glucoside Foaming Cleanser is a gel formula with a mild foaming action for cleaning your skin (but not removi