Cleansing agents such as facial cleansers and makeup removers are required not only to have high cleansing power against excess sebum and makeup, but also to be par ticularly gentle to the skin and hypoallergenic since they are used on the face.Therefore, we are focusing on polyglycerol fatty acid esters (PGFEs), which is highly safe and widely used in leave-on type skin care products, and investigating its skin care ef fects when used as a cleansing ingredient.The results of various evaluations showed that cleaning formulations containing PGFEs didn't disrupt skin barrier functions such as intercellular lipids, and were ef fective in suppressing multiple exfoliation of stratum corneum, reducing the size of keratotic plugs and carbonylation level of stratum corneum around skin pores. This ar ticle introduces the skin care ef fects required of cleaning agents in terms of the water-holding capacity of PGFEs and its adsorption behavior on stratum corneum.