Worth The Splurge? – Beautiful With Brains

Last Updated on February 28, 2026 by Giorgia Guazzarotti

Googling Nuskin 180 Face Wash reviews? Totally get you. £59 for a cleanser that barely stays on your skin for 2 minutes is… outrageous. Unless that cleanser does something special like… I don’t know make me coffee? I’l even take minimise the appearance of wrinkles. On paper, it seems like it’s got what it needs to do the job. After all, it has a generous dose of free flowing Vitamin C (whatever free flowing means). In practice… Not impressed. In this review, I’ll share with you how this cleanser works, who it’s for, and whether it’s a fantastic product to add to your skincare routine or an overpriced one best left on the shelves. 

Nuskin 180 Face Wash: What Makes It Work?

ASCORBIC ACID

This is the free flowing Vitamin C. I’m not really sure what “free-flowing” means in this context. Ascorbic Acid is the pure form of Vitamin C that brightens skin and prevents wrinkles. BUT, it’s very unstable. There’s a reason why Skinceuticals CE Ferulic goes bad after a few weeks. Ascorbic Acid goes bad quickly. Some brands get around this by micro-encapsulating it, a technology that keeps it safe from the rest of the formula and releases it upon contact with your skin. That’s the opposite of free flowing in my book. 

That’s not what this brand is doing anyway. They claim that, unlike other cleansers, this one is water-free. Take water out of the game and Ascorbic Acid lasts a lot longer. The catch? There’s water here, just a lot less than in other products. Ascorbic Acid will degrade more slowly, but will still degrade. And all of this is pointless anyway because Vitamin C needs to be on your skin to work. You won’t get brighter skin if you rinse it off the drain within a couple of minutes, know what I mean?

Related: Do Anti-Aging Cleansers Work?

SESAME SEED OIL

You’ll see it as Sesamum Indicum Seed Oil on the label. It’s a non-fragrant oil that deeply moisturises skin. And let me tell you, skin needs that badly during the cleansing process. But that’s not the only reason why it’s here. It’s part of the cleansing system. It works thanks to the “like attracts like” principles. This oil is a magnet for the oils in your makeup, sunscreen, and even excess sebum. It attaches to them and helps them rinse them off. 

SURFACTANTS

This a fancy name for a family of ingredients that help oils mix with water, so they can be rinsed away. This cleanser uses Sodium Cocoyl Isethionate and Sodium C14-16 Olefin Sulfonate. They’re very mild, create a light foam, and cleanse skin without drying it out. Plus, they also help remove the greasy feel that oil cleansers, like Sesame Seed Oil, sometimes leave behind. 

The Rest Of The Formula & Ingredients

• Glycerin: A humectant, a fancy way of calling ingredients that draw moisture from the air into the skin, so that it stays soft and moisturised during the cleaning process.
• C12-15 Alkyl Benzoate: It does double duty. As an emollient, it makes skin softer and smoother. As a thickener, it makes the texture… well, thicker.
• Helianthus Annuus Seed Oil: Derived from sunflowers, this oil makes skin softer and smoother. It also strengthens your protective barrier. 
• Butylene Glycol: A humectant that does the same job as glycerin. Plus, it helps others ingredients better penetrate skin.
• Stearyl Glycyrrhetinate: Derived from liquorice, it has soothing properties. 
• Ginkgo Biloba Leaf Extract: A popular herbal extract loaded with antioxidants. Unfortunately, they just end up down the drain.
• Panax Ginseng Root Extract: A darling of Korean skincare, ginseng is loaded with antioxidants to prevent premature aging. You guessed it, they end up down the drain too.
• Aqua: A solvent used to dissolve the other ingredients in this formula.
• Carbomer: It thickens the formula and helps the oily and watery ingredients mixed together, so they don’t separate into yucky laters.
• Sodium Isethionate: A cleansing agent that mitigates skin barrier’s disrution.
• Lecithin: Another emulsifier that keeps the formula together.
• Silica: An oil-absorbent that creates a smooth, easy feel on the skin. 
• Hydrated Silica: It improves the texture of the product.
• Sodium Chloride: Plain old table salt. It’s here to thicken the formula.
• Sodium Sulfate: It acts like a mild preservative from bacterial contamination. 
• Sodium Xylenesulfonate: It improves the texture of the product.
• Aluminum Hydroxide: It has opacifying and soothing properties. 
• Tocopherol: A form of Vitamin E with antioxidant properties. 
• Vitis Vinifera Seed Extract: Another powerful antioxidant… that gets rinsed down the drain.
• Parfum: Makes this cleanser small lovely, but can irritate sensitive skin.
• Limonene: A component of the fragrance that needs to be listed separately on the label because it’s a common allergen. Enough said.

Texture

Much thicker than you’d expect from something labelled a “face wash.” It’s somewhere between a rich cream and a paste – not quite toothpaste, but denser than any gel or foaming cleanser you’ve probably used.  The thickness means a tiny amount genuinely covers the whole face, which helps justify the price in terms of cost-per-use. But it also means that rinsing feels like more of a job than it should. 

Fragrance

There’s a citrusy, slightly medicinal scent – clean but distinctive. It smells a bit like vitamin C powder dissolved in something botanical, which makes sense given what it is. It’s not unpleasant, and the citrus note is fresh without being synthetic or sharp. That said, it can still irritate sensitive skin.

How To Use It

Start with dry hands on dry skin. Apply a small pea-sized amount (seriously small – less than you think you need) directly to your face and neck. Massage it gently with dry fingertips for about 30 seconds, distributing it evenly before any water is involved. Then wet your hands and introduce water gradually, continuing to massage. Let it sit for at least a minute – use this time to brush your teeth or do something else, it doesn’t need your attention. Then rinse thoroughly with warm water.

Packaging

Clean, white tube. Simple. Nothing revolutionary – it looks like a clinical skincare product rather than a luxury one. The flip-top cap is fine. The tube is squeezable without too much effort.

My only functional gripe is that the formula is dense enough that the last 10-15% of the tube takes some effort to get out. Not a deal-breaker, but you’ll need to roll from the bottom once you’re getting near the end, otherwise you’ll think it’s empty when it isn’t.

Performance & Personal Opinion

Here’s what I actually noticed: after using this, skin feels clean without feeling stripped. That’s genuinely harder to achieve than it sounds. Many cleansers that do a good job of removing grime also leave your face feeling tight or squeaky, which is your skin’s way of telling you the barrier has been compromised. This one didn’t do that – the oils in the formula seem to balance the surfactant action, leaving skin feeling comfortable and soft rather than parched.

The stinging. I need to address it honestly. There is a warmth and slight tingle when it’s on the skin, and for the first week or so, it was a bit more pronounced than I’d call comfortable. That’s Ascorbic Acid for you, by the way. It settled down after that. But if your skin is already compromised – actively broken out, irritated, post-peeling – I’d wait until things are calmer before introducing this. 

What I Like About Nu Skin 180° Face Wash

• Skin feels genuinely clean after use without that tight, stripped feeling that a lot of cleansers leave behind
• A tiny amount covers the whole face

What I DON’T Like About Nu Skin 180° Face Wash

• Expensive 
• Can sting
• The thick texture is genuinely difficult to rinse off completely, and residue likely drives many of the reported breakouts
• Contains fragrance 

Who Should Use This?

This is a product for someone in their 30s-50s with normal to dry, non-acne-prone skin. It’s not for you if: you have sensitive or eczema-prone skin, you’re managing active acne, you hate anything that tingles, or you’re categorically against paying premium prices for a cleanser.

Does Nuskin 180 Face Wash Live Up To Its Claims?

Price & Availability

$58.99 at Nu Skin

The Verdict: Should You Buy It?

If you want a vitamin C treatment, buy a serum. This isn’t that. The vitamin C gets rinsed down the drain before it can do anything meaningful. So much for a powerful anti-aging cleanser. As a cleanser on its own terms, it’s decent. It cleans properly, doesn’t strip the skin, and a tube lasts a long time. But it’s too expensive for what it does, in my opinion.