Kiehl's Ultra Facial Oil-Free Toner Review

How well it fits each concern

Pros & Cons

Full Review

Take the milky Ultra Facial toner, remove the squalane and the three plant oils that make it milky, and this is what is left: water, glycerin, propanediol, a preservative system, a couple of gel formers, a pH adjuster and three extracts at trace levels. Fifteen ingredients. No alcohol, no oil, no fragrance, no silicone, no acid, no essential oil, nothing on the list that a fungal-acne sufferer or a rosacea patient or a nut-allergic reader would need to avoid. Kiehl's has made a toner that cannot go wrong, and having done so, it has to answer the question every product this plain invites: what is it for, and why does it cost this much?

The first answer is that it is for the face that the original toner was too rich for. Combination and oily skin, particularly the kind that tightens after cleansing and then over-produces oil an hour later, needs water put back without lipid put on top, and this is a competent way to do that. Glycerin at second and propanediol at third pull water into the upper skin and hold it there; sodium hyaluronate further down adds a little surface slip. Pressed in with the palms after cleansing, it leaves the skin cool and comfortable, with a slight tackiness that disappears under a gel moisturizer. Over a few days, skin that had been caught in the dehydrate-then-shine cycle tends to settle, which is the modest and real benefit reviewers describe.

The extracts deserve a plain description. Imperata cylindrica root, a desert grass, and Pseudoalteromonas ferment, a glycoprotein from an Antarctic marine bacterium, are the two story ingredients of the entire Ultra Facial line, borrowed from the cream where they at least appear in a leave-on. Here they sit tenth and eleventh, behind the preservatives, and their hydration claims rest on supplier tests of the raw materials. Cucumber extract at thirteenth adds a faint cooling impression. None of the three is doing anything you could measure; the glycerin is doing the work, and the extracts are there so the label has something to say.

What the toner does not do is anything about oil. It is oil-free, which is a statement about the formula, not about your face, and the difference matters because the packaging language about reducing excess oil invites the misreading. There is no niacinamide, no salicylic acid, no zinc, no clay, nothing that touches sebum production or pore congestion. It will not make oily skin oilier, and by preventing the dehydration that triggers rebound oil it may make it a little calmer, but that is the extent of it. Reviewers who bought it for blemishes and found it did nothing for them were sold the right product for the wrong reason.

That plainness is also its strength, and it is worth stating clearly for the people who need it. Sensitive, reactive, rosacea-prone, retinoid-treated and fungal-acne-prone skin all struggle to find a hydrating toner with nothing in it to object to, and this is one of the few from a prestige brand that qualifies on every count. Propylene glycol at fifth is the sole ingredient with any sensitisation record, and it is a rare one. Layered under a salicylic acid serum or a retinol, it takes the edge off the tightness without adding anything to the irritation ledger, and it can be patted over sunscreen mid-day without disturbing it. For that audience, the empty label is the feature.

It is also, quietly, a good travel and gym product, which is a use Kiehl's does not advertise. A water-thin, alcohol-free, fragrance-free humectant splash with nothing to separate or spoil can be decanted into a small bottle, patted over a sweaty face after a workout to rehydrate without a full cleanse, or pressed over sunscreen on a long flight, and none of that disturbs makeup or clogs anything. The original milky toner, with its oils, cannot be used that way; this one can, and for combination skin that spends its days in air-conditioning it may be the more useful bottle of the two for exactly that reason.

The price is the honest sticking point. Twenty-six dollars for 8.4 ounces buys about four months of twice-daily use, which is not a terrible monthly cost, but the formula is a glycerin-and-glycol water that several drugstore and Korean brands sell in larger bottles for a third of the money, sometimes with a real dose of hyaluronic acid or niacinamide thrown in. Kiehl's is charging for the name, the restrictor-top bottle and the reassurance of a formula that has not changed in a decade, and reassurance has some value for reactive skin; it does not have twenty-six dollars of value for anyone else.

So the question the empty label poses answers itself, in two directions. If your skin is oily or combination and reacts to things, and you want a hydrating step that is guaranteed to be inert, this is a very safe purchase and a pleasant one. If your skin is simply oily and you want a toner to help with it, this will not, and the same money spent on a niacinamide or salicylic acid toner would. Buy it for what it leaves out, never for what it promises to do.

Key Ingredients

The hero actives that drive this product's performance.

Ingredient standings describe the active at treatment-level doses and vehicles; this product's own condition grades weigh its actual formula.

Skin Match

Science & Expert Perspective

Usage & Recommendations

Product Details

The Story Behind This Product

Kiehl's spun an Oil-Free sub-line out of its best-selling Ultra Facial franchise in the early 2010s, after the original cream and toner proved too rich for the combination and oily skin that a large share of its customers had. The Oil-Free toner kept the hydrating positioning and the line's two story ingredients, Imperata grass root and a marine ferment, and stripped out every lipid, giving oily-skinned customers a Kiehl's toner that would not add shine.

Common Myths

Frequently Asked Questions

What Reviewers Tend to Say

Recurring themes our editors read across retailer reviews of this product — summaries in our words, not quotations, and not a substitute for your own patch test.

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