Kao Develops New Skin-Cleansing Technology
By wchung | 22 Apr, 2026

A new skin cleanser that actually improves the skin while providing better cleaning power has been developed by Japan’s Kao Corporation.

The new cleanser uses a mixture of anionic surfactants that show very little sorption (sum of adsorption amount and penetration amount) to the skin while effectively adsorbing (causing adhesion to the surface — different from absorbing) the dirt on the skin surface.

This combination of properties achieves the goal of being mild to the skin while providing cleansing performance — properties not compatible in conventional cleansers. Kao’s new cleanser even produced an improvement in the skin’s texture.

The new cleansing agent was shown to have a much lower sorption amount than that of Kao’s existing cleansing technology.

Moreover, tests on the human palm showed that swelling was kept to a lower level than with Kao’s existing cleansing technology.

The minimal impact on the skin’s stratum corneum indicates that the cleanser is gentle to the skin, causing only a slight variation in the skin’s moisture level.

Skin texture was also evaluated after the cleanser was used for four weeks and was found to have improved.

Yet the new cleanser has higher cleansing performance compared to Kao’s existing cleansing technology.

The combination of these properties is expected to make the new cleanser extremely attractive to makers of all skin-cleaning products.

Kao was founded in 1887 as Kao Face Soap Company and began selling its first soap in 1890. It entered the cosmetics market in 1982. Since then its Beauty Center researchers have focused on developing mild but effective skin cleansing agents.