Should You Buy It? – Beautiful With Brains

Last Updated on September 2, 2026 by Giorgia Guazzarotti

I have a bit of a love-hate relationship with jelly cleansers. Get the formula right and they’re lovely: light, gentle and much nicer to use than a cleanser that leaves your face feeling like it’s been scrubbed with washing-up liquid. Get it wrong and you end up massaging slippery gel around your face wondering whether it’s actually cleaning anything. So I was curious about the Mad Hippie Jelly Cleanser. It’s supposed to remove makeup, sunscreen and everyday grime without stripping your skin, but does it actually clean well? Is it really gentle? In this review, I’ll tell you how it works, which skin types should use it, and if it deserves a spot in your skincare routine:

Key Ingredients In Mad Hippie Jelly Cleanser: What Makes It Work?

THE CLEANSING INGREDIENTS

The ingredients that actually get your face clean are surfactants. These little molecules grab onto oil at one end and water at the other, so they can simultaneously remove excess oil, grime, and makeup. No need to double cleanse with an oil-based cleanser followed by a water-based cleanser. Mad Hippie skipped the harsh surfactants and picked three of the gentlest members of this family to cleanse without disrupting your skin’s natural acid mantle.

• Decyl glucoside: A sugar-based surfactant that gives you a good cleanse without being particularly harsh on your skin.
• Sucrose laurate: Made from sugar and lauric acid, this doubles as a surfactant and emulsifier, helping lift oily gunk from your skin so it washes away.
• Sucrose stearate: Another sugar-based surfactant and emulsifier, this helps with cleansing while also keeping the oily and watery ingredients in the formula mixed together

Performance & Personal Opinion

Mad Hippie Jelly Cleanser is thick. Like, really thick. It starts as a dense jelly, but add water and it melts into a much thinner, milkier cleanser with barely any foam. If you love a big bubbly lather, you’re not getting it here. It also has a very subtle, lightly floral scent that disappears once you rinse it off (it comes from the ingredients, there’s no added fragrance here).

You can use it as the first step both in your daytime and nighttime routine. Just mix a small amount of the thick clear gel with lukewarm water for a thorough cleanse. The gentle formula removes everyday grime, sunscreen and makeup without leaving your face feeling tight and stripped afterwards. Instead, skin feels soft and comfortable. I wouldn’t depend on it to tackle stubborn waterproof makeup on its own, though. And there is one trade-off to that soft finish: it can leave a slight film behind, which you’re more likely to notice if your skin is oily.

One more thing: the cleanser is loaded with antioxidants, but don’t think washing your face with this will give your skin an antioxidant boost. They just get rinsed off down the drain. There are better Mad Hippie products for anti-aging, like their Vitamin C serum. 

Who Should Use This?

If cleansers usually leave your face feeling like it’s two sizes too small, this one’s worth a look. It’s a particularly good fit for normal skin, dry skin and combination skin because it cleans without taking every last drop of moisture with it. It’s not the most hydrating cleanser and not hydrating enough as Mad Hippie Cream Cleanser, but it’s good enough. Got very oily skin? I’d skip it. That soft, slightly filmy finish is probably going to annoy you more than impress you. What about sensitive skin?   Lime oil may irritate it, so I wouldn’t use it.

Price & Availability

$17.99 at Ulta

The Verdict: Should You Buy It?

I’d buy it if you want a cleanser that does the boring-but-important stuff well: gets your face clean, doesn’t strip the life out of your skin, and leaves it feeling soft afterwards. There’s nothing revolutionary going on here, and honestly, there doesn’t need to be. A facial cleanser is on your face for about a minute before you wash it down the drain.