Key Takeaways
- Same ingredient, different intent: While most sprays contain hypochlorous acid, they vary in purpose — some are designed for skincare, others for multi-use or medical-grade applications.
- Manufacturing standards matter: Products made under medical device manufacturing protocols (like Active Skin Repair) follow stricter controls than typical cosmetic sprays.
- Simplicity supports stability: HOCl works best in minimalist formulas. Additional ingredients (like hyaluronic acid or essential oils) may reduce its effectiveness.
Hypochlorous acid is having a major skincare moment, and if you discovered it through TikTok or a beauty blog, you're not alone. This once-obscure molecule has gone from first-aid essential to must-have face mist, showing up in sleek bottles on vanities and bathroom shelves everywhere.
But here’s what got us curious: why do all these sprays vary so much? Some are marketed as beauty products. Others look like they belong in a first-aid kit. Some cost $14, others closer to $40. They all contain the same star ingredient, so how can we compare them?
Whenever a new category of products emerges, we aim to understand the full context and identify the key factors consumers should consider when comparing their options. Our goal isn’t to tell you what to buy but to understand what makes products different. Here's what we found.
First, What Is Hypochlorous Acid?
Hypochlorous acid (HOCl) is a compound your body naturally produces as part of its immune response. It helps fight bacteria, calm inflammation, and support skin repair. In medical settings, it's used to clean wounds and prevent infection. In skincare, it's praised for reducing redness, breakouts, and irritation without drying or damaging the skin barrier. Think of it as more gentle than other antibacterial ingredients like benzoyl peroxide.
The catch? It didn’t start in beauty.
How Did It Enter Skincare?
For years, hypochlorous acid was a clinical ingredient used primarily in hospitals and first-aid products. It was effective, but not something you’d ever expect to find in a beauty routine.
That changed when Tower 28 launched its SOS Daily Rescue Facial Spray. The brand didn’t invent HOCl, but they were the first to reframe it as a gentle, minimalist skincare solution. Their spray was dermatologist-approved, simple, and incredibly user-friendly. Suddenly, an ingredient with medical roots was being talked about as a clean beauty essential all over TikTok.
Since then, the category has exploded. Now you can find hypochlorous sprays from skincare brands, wellness lines, and even high-end lifestyle companies. But if the core ingredient is the same, what actually sets them apart?
What We Learned to Look For
As we started digging, we identified a few key things that should be considered when comparing hypochlorous acid sprays. These became our filters for understanding how well a hypochlorous spray potentially works and what makes one version stand apart from another.
1. How It's Made (And Who It's Made For)
Most hypochlorous sprays in the beauty space are produced by third-party cosmetic manufacturers under standard skincare regulations. That makes sense, considering many of these products are formulated primarily for facial use and marketed like mists or toners. But not all sprays follow the same path.
Tower 28, for example, created their spray specifically for facial skincare, with sensitive and acne-prone skin in mind. It’s positioned as a calming daily mist and is backed by clinical testing for irritation and redness reduction. The brand helped bring hypochlorous acid into the beauty conversation by presenting it as a minimalist, clean-beauty solution — and it remains one of the most accessible entry points for anyone discovering the ingredient for the first time.
The brand Twenty/Twenty Beauty takes a different approach altogether. Their Easy on the Eyes Calming Face Mist is designed with eye health in mind, formulated by an ophthalmologist for use around the delicate eye area. The brand leans into sensitivity and comfort, and while it’s still positioned as a beauty product, its roots in eye care give it a slightly more targeted feel — less about full-face treatment, more about soothing a specific, often overlooked area.
Let’s take Active Skin Repair as an example of a different approach entirely. It’s made in-house by its parent company in an FDA-registered facility that follows medical device manufacturing protocols — something more typical of hospital-grade products than cosmetics. That manufacturing framework affects what kinds of claims the product can make, including safe use on open skin or post-procedure areas.
That approach makes sense given the product’s origins. Active Skin Repair wasn’t developed for skincare originally. It came out of a company focused on hypochlorous acid for medical applications, and was one of the first over-the-counter options available in this space. Its early adopters weren’t beauty insiders but instead they were health-conscious, outdoorsy families looking for something multifunctional and trusted.
2. Formula Simplicity (And Why That Matters)
HOCl is a powerful molecule, but it’s also fragile. Its stability depends heavily on the surrounding formula. Adding other ingredients — like essential oils, hyaluronic acid, active ingredients, or botanical extracts — can compromise its effectiveness or shorten its shelf life. While some brands add extras to enhance skin feel or make broader claims, more isn’t always better when it comes to hypochlorous acid.
Tower 28 keeps its formula refreshingly simple, using just hypochlorous acid, water, and sodium chloride — a minimal approach that’s ideal for sensitive skin and daily use. Twenty/Twenty’s Easy on the Eyes Mist takes a similarly minimalist approach. Developed by an ophthalmologist, it’s specifically formulated for use around the delicate eye area — an area where both gentleness and formula purity are essential. Active Skin Repair takes a similarly streamlined route, relying on the same core ingredients but using a formulation that’s also cleared for use on broken skin, making it suitable for a wider range of uses including first aid and post-procedure care.
Some other sprays in the beauty category have added additional ingredients to boost hydration or sensory appeal, which may be fine for general skin maintenance, but could affect the stability of HOCl over time, especially if you’re looking for a product that does more than refresh.
3. Stability and Testing
If not properly stabilized, HOCl can lose its potency long before the bottle is empty. That’s why stability testing matters just as much as the ingredient list.
In the beauty category, most brands don’t publicly share how they test for product stability or how long their HOCl remains active. Typically, cosmetic formulas go through stability testing during product development to confirm the formula holds up over time but this doesn't always mean the active ingredient maintains its effectiveness throughout the product’s shelf life.
Effectiveness testing is a different story, and it's not a requirement for cosmetic-grade products. That’s why it stood out when we learned that Active Skin Repair test every batch for pH, concentration, and active performance. While that level of transparency is more common in the medical world than in beauty, it can make a difference for those who want consistency and potency in every use.
4. Intended Use and Versatility
This is where the differences between products become especially clear. While they all feature hypochlorous acid as the active ingredient, they’re designed with very different use cases in mind.
Tower 28 is formulated as a skincare product first. It fits neatly into a daily routine and is especially helpful for calming breakouts, reducing redness, and supporting a healthy skin barrier. Twenty/Twenty’s Easy on the Eyes Mist is more targeted. It’s designed to soothe irritation around the eyes caused by dryness, screen fatigue, or environmental stressors, and features a specially designed gentle mist that’s safe for use near the eyes without causing discomfort. It’s not intended for broader uses like wound care or first aid, but for those who experience sensitivity or irritation near the eyes, it fills a very specific (and often overlooked) need.
Active Skin Repair is positioned a bit differently. While it can absolutely be used as a skincare mist, it was developed with a broader range of uses in mind. It’s safe for everything from cuts and scrapes to acne, sunburn, and even post-procedure care. It’s also FDA-cleared as a medical device, which speaks to a different level of intended application. That makes it feel less like a step in your skincare routine and more like a multi-purpose product that belongs in both your bathroom cabinet and your first-aid kit.
5. Brand Expertise
Another factor that can shape how people choose products is brand focus. In some cases, consumers tend to trust brands that specialize in a specific category. You see that with sunscreen, retinol, or haircare categories, especially when that focus translates into product quality or consistency.
When it comes to hypochlorous acid, some brands include it as part of a broader skincare or wellness lineup, while others have deeper roots with the ingredient. For example, Active Skin Repair was developed by a company that had prior experience working with hypochlorous acid in medical and clinical contexts. That kind of background may not matter to everyone, but for those who value category-specific expertise, it can be a relevant point of differentiation.
Final Take: What Do You Want This Spray to Do?
Our deep dive into hypochlorous acid sprays has led us to the conclusion that choosing the right solution comes down to what you want the spray to do. If you're looking for a clean, minimalist face mist to support your skincare routine, Tower 28 is a well-loved and widely accessible option. If you’re looking for a calming mist designed specifically for the delicate eye area, Twenty/Twenty’s Easy on the Eyes Mist offers a targeted solution with a gentle, ophthalmologist-developed formula.
For those seeking something more multi-functional with clinical manufacturing standards, marketed also for safe use on kids, and a focused history with hypochlorous acid then Active Skin Repair may stand out as a product that bridges the gap between beauty and first aid. If this might be what you’re looking for, we noticed that we were able to generate a code to share. You can use the code SKINSKOOL for 20% off.
At the end of the day, it’s not just about the ingredient, but about how the product is made, how it's tested, and what it's designed to do. Beauty trends can introduce us to useful discoveries, and hypochlorous acid seems to be one of them.
Hopefully, the framework we've laid out gives you a way to evaluate not only these three, but any hypochlorous acid spray you come across. Whether it's on a drugstore shelf or going viral on TikTok, what matters most is finding a product that fits your needs, your skin, and your standards.
