What's up with all these facial cleansers that say things like "Morning Burst" and "Nightly scrub"?

They are trying to sell you more cleansers.

I think I know the morning one you’re talking about and the morningness or whatever of it is the scent, which is supposed to be refreshing and energizing. I don’t think it makes any difference to your skin at all.

Some products for night actually have a reason for being used at night though. Night lotions may be heavier, making them too greasy for makeup to sit on, and don’t have sunblock built in. Some night products may have ingredients that make your skin more sensitive to sunlight too.

Daytime stuff is supposed to be light – you don’t want the feel of heavy stuff all day, and it’ll make your makeup looked caked on. Nighttime is when you want the heavy stuff with all it’s insane moisturizing properties. For washes, it’s mostly the fragrance – certain things like citrus, cucumbers, ginseng all wake you up and energize both your skin and your nostrils. Others, like chamomile, lavender, and vanilla are soothing and calming to help you relax and wind down at the end of the day. So you don’t need two cleansers so long as the one you’ve got does the job, but once your moisturizing routine goes beyond a nice hand lotion, it’s probably a good idea to have a morning moisturizer and an evening one (or find a heavy-duty but light moisturizer).

The name of a product can make or break it, as silly as that sounds. If they name a morning product “Morning Burst” and there is another one, geared for morning time, named “Morning Calm”; which one implies more energy? Usually morning products will imply that it will “wake up skin” and leave you ready and refreshed, or something along those lines. Having a product that doesn’t imply energy and too calm of a name, can tank sales. It’s simple psychology. Understand that companies put a lot into test groups that test everything from the name, to the packing and the product. It doesn’t hit the shelves until a lot of that has been done.

There are products that squeak by, but tend to get repackaged by companies noticing lagging sales.

It’s also a good idea to check the ingredients, as @cak has reminded me. I mean, it’s a good idea anyway, but check to see what makes it “morning”, since a lot of times the “morning” or “evening” wash will be more expensive than the regular wash by the same company, but won’t be any different except for the package it’s in.

Advertising hype.

Oh! Oh! Oh! And night cleansers also have special stuff to remove makeup, which morning cleansers (sometimes) don’t have – they just have regular cleansers. Sometimes mornings will have some exfoliation so that you put makeup on new, live skin.

@papayalily: I just feel smarter when I read your answers! I need to start a fan club!

@cak XD!