Tatcha The Rice Polish Foaming Enzyme Powder

Spending money on skincare has always been a hard sell for me. I’ve been moisturizing since I was 12, and have always been somewhat crazy about sunscreen and washing my makeup off at night no matter what, so I do try to take care of my skin. But I’ve never been one to shell out more than 30 bucks on a skincare product and generally stick to reliable drugstore brands like Neutrogena or Roc (even these I wait to purchase until there’s a coupon or a deal). During one of the Sephora sales a few months back, however, Lea was visiting and helped me pick out an exfoliator after I told her about struggling with flaky, dry skin on my nose. This led us to the Tatcha section, and me to one of my first splurge-y skincare purchases, The Rice Polish Foaming Enzyme Powder. I picked up the Classic formula and have been dedicatedly using it for three months.

Price: $65

Find it HERE

Tested September-December 2019

I’ve wanted to try Tatcha products for a while. The brand’s philosophy, based on the holistic legacy of Japanese beauty rituals, is really refreshing in the midst of the “ANTI-AGING” and “IMMEDIATE RESULTS” skincare culture that many brands subscribe to. The Rice Polish in Classic that I have been using is recommended for Normal to Dry skin, but there are also versions for Normal to Oily, Dry and Sensitive skin.

The packaging of this product is excellent. The lid screws off and there’s a little plastic panel that slides back to reveal a hole that allows you shake the product from the jar. As a result, the product is really well-sealed to prevent unnecessary moisture from affecting the powder and it’s totally mess free (also amazing for travel because it’s not a liquid, but a powder).

I have been using this as my daily morning cleanser (and my favorite Perricone MD Nutritive Cleanser at night). I shake a little bit into the palm of my hand, something about the size of a quarter, add a little sprinkle of water and mix the water into the powder with my clean fingers. It almost immediately begins to change from a grainy powder to a light foam, and once I feel like it’s foamy enough, I gently massage it all over my face for about 15 seconds. When it’s rinsed off, my skin feels clean and soft, never stripped.

I will be totally honest and say that I didn’t notice immediate results using this product. After a week, I was enjoying it as a face wash, but I still had dry patches on my nose like before. I didn’t give up on it, however, and I think this is the key. After about a month I looked at my skin and noticed that the flaky patches were gone and my makeup was going on around my nose much more smoothly. By about two months in, the pores on my cheeks around the sides of my nose were barely noticeable. I have always had blackheads on the top and sides of my nose (they must be immortal because nothing I have ever done has fully eradicated them so I’ve kind of given up on that), but I looked closely in the mirror the other day and genuinely think they are lighter and less visible, though still there.

I love that this powder is a non-abrasive enzymatic exfoliator, unlike a lot of the scrubs out there that are physical exfoliators. The brand claims that “the ground rice bran and papaya enzymes promote natural skin turnover,” and “the pH neutral, amino acid base formula provides effective cleansing without stripping skin of the essential moisture or breaking the skin’s barrier function.” I claim that I am thoroughly pleased with this product. My skin feels very balanced overall since I started using this on a daily basis, and I plan on keeping it up. After three months, I’m not quite halfway through the jar, so I like that I will get many months of use from one purchase. It turns out this was worth the splurge.