Ma:nyo Our Vegan Heartleaf Cica Cleansing Foam Review

Houttuynia cordata is a wetland herb with a fishy smell — its Chinese name means fish-mint — that grew in Korean folk medicine for centuries before it grew, around 2020, into one of K-beauty's soothing heroes under the prettier English name of heartleaf. Its rise was fast and its logic was sound: a plant with in-vitro antibacterial and anti-inflammatory activity, pitched at skin that is both breaking out and worn down by acne treatments, at a moment when the whole industry was pivoting from actives to barrier care. Ma:nyo, a Korean plant-and-ferment brand since 2003, built its vegan-certified Our Vegan line around it, and this cleansing foam is the line's wash-off step — which raises the question every botanical cleanser raises, which is how much a herb can do in the thirty seconds before it goes down the drain. The honest answer is very little, and the better news is that this foam does not need it to.

What the foam needs is its surfactants, and they are well chosen. Sodium cocoyl isethionate, third on the list, is the mild anionic surfactant that gives syndet bars their creamy lather and strips far less barrier lipid than sulfates; potassium cocoyl glycinate, fifth, is an amino-acid surfactant that keeps the wash soft and the post-rinse feel comfortable. A small potassium cocoate soap fraction densifies the foam and a starch phosphate gives it body. Glycerin sits second, above every surfactant, which is why the rinse never leaves skin tight. This is the surfactant architecture of a cleanser built for skin that is easily stripped, and it produces a dense, cushiony foam from a pea-sized squeeze that rinses to clean, cool, un-squeaky skin — the opposite of the harsh foaming washes that breakout-prone skin tends to buy and regret.

The active gesture is gluconolactone, seventh on the list, a polyhydroxy acid that is the gentlest of the hydroxy-acid family: large, slow to penetrate, humectant and chelating as well as mildly exfoliating. In a rinse-off it does a light daily polishing of the surface, enough to keep a congested T-zone from building up dead cells, and not enough to sting or to conflict with a leave-on acid or retinoid. It is a smart concession to the exfoliation acne-prone skin wants from a cleanser, made in the mildest available form.

Then the botanicals. Heartleaf appears twice — as a liquid extract and as a fine powder that gives the cream its faint green flecks and its slightly herbal smell — and centella, bamboo water, hinoki water and birch juice trail at the bottom of the list. In the minute the foam sits on the face they are a soothing note and a pleasant one; reactive skin does feel calmer after washing with this than with a stripping cleanser, though the credit belongs mostly to what the surfactants are not doing. No study shows a heartleaf wash reduces breakouts, and the brand does not quite claim it does. The flecks rinse away; a few users find them faintly gritty, but they are soft and not a scrub.

In use, it is an easy cleanser to like and a hard one to be excited by, which is roughly what a cleanser should be. As a stand-alone morning wash it removes overnight oil and leaves the skin ready for a toner; as the second step after an oil cleanser at night it lifts the emulsified residue cleanly. It is not strong enough alone for heavy makeup or water-resistant sunscreen, and it does not pretend to be. There is no fragrance, no alcohol, no oil, no sulfate and no silicone; it is fungal-acne-friendly and vegan-certified, and it is safe on a retinized face and in pregnancy. Over weeks the benefit is simply that the barrier stays intact and the oil-and-redness cycle a harsh cleanser sets off never starts.

The complaints are small and real. Fifteen dollars for 120 mL is a modest price and a small tube — six to eight weeks at twice daily — which makes it dearer per wash than the volume suggests. The public record is thin: a couple of dozen reviews on the brand's US store since 2022, which is enough to confirm the feel and not enough to say much else. And the heartleaf-and-cica name promises a treatment that a rinse-off cannot deliver, which is the whole botanical-cleanser category's quiet overstatement rather than this brand's particular sin.

So: for combination, oily, normal or sensitive skin that breaks out and also strips easily — the overlap that most acne cleansers ignore — this is a gentle, well-built daily foam with a light PHA edge and nothing to react to, at a fair if not generous price. For heavy makeup, for anyone expecting the herb to do the treating, or for anyone wanting a big bottle for the money, the oil cleanser goes first and the treatment goes after — and this foam does the modest, essential job in between.