Clearasil

Clearasil didn't just sell acne cream — it more or less invented the modern teenage acne market. Created in 1950 by the American entrepreneur Ivan Combe, with help from chemist Kedzie Teller, it was among the first skincare products marketed specifically to young people fighting pimples. Combe's marketing instincts were as important as the formula: by sponsoring Dick Clark's American Bandstand, he turned Clearasil into a rite of passage for a generation of self-conscious teenagers.

The original formula relied on sulfur and resorcinol; today's products lean on benzoyl peroxide and salicylic acid, the same clinically proven actives found across the acne aisle. The brand itself has changed hands almost as often as its formulas — Combe sold it in 1960, and through subsequent decades it passed to Richardson-Vicks, then Procter & Gamble in 1985, then Boots, and since 2006 it has belonged to the British-Dutch consumer-goods giant Reckitt.

That corporate pedigree means reliable, mass-produced formulas available in virtually every drugstore at accessible prices.

The honest read is that Clearasil is a competent, no-frills legacy acne brand that coasts somewhat on name recognition. Its benzoyl peroxide and salicylic acid products work as well as any drugstore equivalent, but there's nothing especially innovative here, and the classic formulations have a reputation for being harsh — drying, and in the case of benzoyl peroxide, prone to bleaching fabric. For mild teenage acne on resilient skin, Clearasil remains a serviceable, inexpensive option with seventy-plus years of familiarity behind it; for sensitive or adult skin, gentler modern approaches often make more sense.