Haruharu Wonder Black Rice Toner & Cleansing Oil: Ten Months In

There's a specific kind of tired that turns up on your face around half nine at night. Not dramatic. Just flat. Skin that's been through central heating, a school run, six hours of screen and whatever the wind was doing outside, and has just stopped trying.

That's the point in the evening where these two do their work.

I started using the Haruharu Wonder Black Rice Moisture Deep Cleansing Oil and the Black Rice Hyaluronic Toner last November (10 months ago), because an AI told me to. Which is a sentence I'd have laughed at two years ago. They came out of the skincare routine I asked ChatGPT to build me at 32, and at the time I'd never used a toner in my life (apart from occassionally the Tesco brand on in the bathroom at my parents house). I assumed it was a step invented to sell you a fourth bottle.

Ten months later they're both still in the bathroom, which is more than I can say for most of what I've tested this year. So here's the proper version, including the bits I'd change.

The short verdict

The Haruharu Wonder cleansing oil and toner are a genuinely good pairing for dry or dehydrated skin, and they cost around £30 for the two, which is not nothing but is roughly one decent department store cleanser.

The cleansing oil has nine ingredients, is unscented, and melts sunscreen off without leaving your face feeling stripped. The toner is built around 2,000ppm fermented Korean black rice extract and 600ppm hyaluronic acid, and it's thicker than most toners, which is the whole point of it (ppm = parts per million).

Together they solve a specific problem: skin that feels tight the second you've washed it. If that's not your problem, you don't need them. If it is, this is the cheapest fix I've found.

The cleansing oil, and why nine ingredients matters

The full list is rice bran oil, caprylic/capric triglyceride, sunflower seed oil, olive fruit oil, sorbeth-30 tetraoleate, jojoba seed oil, macadamia seed oil, tocopherol and ethylhexylglycerin. That's it. Five plant oils, an emulsifier so it rinses off, vitamin E and a preservative booster.

Rice bran oil sits first, and it's a decent one: oleic and linoleic acids, vitamin E, gamma-oryzanol. Nothing exotic. Just a well-chosen base oil doing a job.

The absence I care most about is fragrance. It's genuinely unscented, not “masked with something floral,” and after years of cleansers that smell like a spa reception I'd forgotten how much I prefer that at half nine at night when I want to go to bed.

You use it on a dry face, which people get wrong constantly. One or two pumps, massage for about thirty seconds, then wet your hands and keep going. It turns milky white, which is the emulsifier doing its thing, and then it rinses off properly. No film, no need to go at your face with a flannel.

It shifts SPF, which is important. I wear sunscreen daily now and most cleansers make you work for it.

RRP is around £16 for 150ml, though it's discounted constantly and I've seen it closer to £12. It's a pump bottle, which the toner isn't, and I'll come back to that.

The toner, and the version nobody warns you about

Here's the single most useful thing in this post.

There are two Black Rice Hyaluronic Toners. The original contains ethanol and lavender essential oil, which means linalool and limonene appear as fragrance allergens. Small amounts, low down the list, but there.

The second is sold as Black Rice Hyaluronic Toner for Sensitive Skin, free of alcohol and fragrance. Same 2,000ppm black rice extract, same 600ppm hyaluronic acid, no lavender, no ethanol. That's the one Boots stocks at £16 for 150ml, and it's the one I'd point most people towards.

The packaging is nearly identical and the online listings are a mess. If you've read a review saying this toner stung, there's a fair chance they had the original and didn't know there was an alternative.

Formula-wise it's black rice extract, bamboo shoot bark extract, hyaluronic acid, beta-glucan, glycerin and betaine, with tamarind seed gum and cellulose gum giving it body. Haruharu says 95% naturally derived. I don't weight that claim heavily, because it tells you nothing about whether something works, but I know some of you care.

Watery is the wrong word for it. It's got slip. Somewhere between a thin essence and a proper toner, and if you pour it onto a cotton pad you'll waste half of it. Two or three drops into damp palms, press into face and neck.

There's a faint tackiness for about thirty seconds before it settles. On dehydrated skin that's a good sign. On oily skin in July it might feel like too much.

Why the pair works better than either alone

This is the bit I didn't expect.

An oil cleanser that doesn't strip your face and a toner that puts water back into it are solving two halves of the same problem. The oil takes off the day without wrecking your barrier. The toner goes on while your skin is still damp and gives it something to hold onto.

Use the toner after a foaming cleanser that's already stripped you and you're patching over damage. Use the oil cleanser and then nothing, and your skin is clean but still thirsty by the time you're in bed.

It's the same logic I got into in my post on what K-beauty actually gets right compared to Western routines: four consistent steps beat ten inconsistent ones, and the order matters more than the number of bottles.

My evening now is oil cleanse, toner on damp skin, serum, moisturiser. Four things. Takes about three minutes. (although lets admit it, sometimes there are retinols in there etc too…)

What I'd change

The toner bottle has no pump. You tip it into your palm and occasionally over-pour, which at £16 a bottle is mildly annoying. The cleansing oil has a pump and it's better for it.

Both come in 150ml, which is small once you're using them twice a day. There's a 300ml toner and you should buy that once you know you like it.

The cleansing oil isn't a good pick if you get fungal acne. Sunflower, olive and jojoba oils all feed malassezia, and while a rinse-off product is lower risk than a leave-on one, I wouldn't chance it. The same oils carry moderate comedogenic ratings, which matters less in something you wash off, but if you're congestion-prone it's worth a patch test rather than going straight in.

And I want to be as straight about results here as I was in my Medicube PDRN serum review. My skin is better than it was eighteen months ago. These two are part of that. They are not the reason on their own, and anyone telling you a cleanser transformed their face is skipping over the other six things they changed and tested.

A quick word on Anua Heartleaf

I get asked about this quite a bit, so let me be honest: I haven't used it. I'm not going to review something I don't own.

What I can tell you is what it is on paper. Anua Heartleaf 77% Soothing Toner is 77% houttuynia cordata extract with panthenol and centella, watery in texture, and built to calm redness rather than to hydrate. It's around £19 for 250ml, which works out cheaper per millilitre than the Haruharu at roughly £7.60 per 100ml against £10.67.

So they're not really competing. Anua is for reactive, red, oily skin. Haruharu is for dry, tight, dehydrated skin. If your face is angry, the Anua is the more sensible starting point and it's better value. If your face is thirsty, Haruharu is the one.

If I get hold of the Anua I'll write it up properly.

Who should skip this

Very oily skin will find the toner too much. The slip and the gums will annoy you.

If you don't wear makeup or sunscreen, an oil cleanser is overkill and you can wash your face with something simpler.

If your barrier is genuinely damaged from over-exfoliating, you want panthenol and centella more than you want hyaluronic acid. Repair first, come back to this after.

Frequently asked questions

Where I've landed

I'll keep buying both through the Scottish winter. The toner I'll probably let lapse next July, because there's a point in summer where my skin doesn't want the extra cushioning. The cleansing oil I'd repurchase year-round without thinking about it.

That's not a glowing verdict on both. It's an accurate one.

More of what I've tested and what I've stopped using is over in my skincare and beauty posts.