Facial scrubs are a very personal thing. You love or hate the feel of the scrub. The size, texture and harshness of the scrub are all personal taste. I would pick an exfoliant based on ingredients, price and preference on the texture of the scrub.
I got the Vasanti BrightenUp! Enzymatic Face Rejuvenator from one of my Birchbox's. The main ingredients are papaya enzyme, aluminum oxide micro crystals, aloe vera, vitamin B & E and coconut. It's not harsh, the scrub feels round in shape. The first few times I used this scrub it stung a little, not harshly, but more than I expected. It works, no complaints at all about it, it's also cheap compared to the rest. This is a physical and enzymatic cleanser.
Su-Man Exfoliating Facial Polish I talked about in detail here. The scrub is not fully round as the coffee is organic, yet it's not harsh. This also has an oil cleanser base which is unique, the rest do not have this.
Omorovicza Gentle Buffing Cleanser is a favorite of mine. The main ingredients are: Hungarian Thermal water, shea butter, Barbados Cherry, Mango, Yellow Mombin, Banana and apple fruit extract, Hungarian Thermal water ferment extract, vitamin E, phospholipids. It's a gentle and creamy cleanser base with smooth beads for exfoliating. It's not harsh and has a great list of ingredients. It's a physical and enzymatic cleanser. It comes in a plastic pump bottle & retails for $85 for 5.1 fl oz.
Omorovicza Refining Facial Polisher is their newest cleanser. It also is a physical exfoliant and enzymatic cleanser. The main ingredients are: Hungarian mud, copper gluconate, olive oil derivative, Lava powder as the physical exfoliant, lactobionic acid, Mango, Yellow Mombin and Banana fruit extract, Hungarian thermal water ferment extract, algae extract, phospholipids and vitamin E. It retails for $95 for 3.4 fl oz as a squeeze tube. It comes out as a dark green color but as you massage it in, it turns greyish. You then leave it on for 2 minutes, then rinse. This does have a harsher feel than any of the others. The scrub size is not uniform or round, it is natural but it can have some sharper edges so it depends what you like. It's not apricot shell scrub harsh but sensitive skin people may have a hard time with it.
Alpha-H is an Australian brand I haven't talked about yet. I get their stuff off of cultbeauty. The Micro Cleanse is a physical and chemical exfoliant scrub. The main ingredients are glycolic acid, polyethylene beads as the physical exfoliant, rice bran wax, macadamia nut oil, vitamin E, cucumber extract and mint oil. It does have parabens so if you're against that this is not for you. They are at the end of the ingredient list so it's not a large concentration. The scrub texture is mild, the beads are not harsh at all. The glycolic acid gives it a big kick though. It's a 100mL tube and retails for about $35.
Zelens Micro-Refiner Exfoliator is a hydrating, physical and enzymatic scrub. The main ingredients are hydrated silica beads, papaya enzyme, Advanced Hydrating Complex(amino acids, lactate, urea, citrate, minerals) and jojoba esters. You massage it for a minute on your skin then rinse. It's a 50mL tube that retails for $90. This scrub is very gentle it has no harsh feeling at all.
The gentlest scrubs are the Omorovicza Gentle Buffing Cleanser and the Zelens. They both have mild physical exfoliants and are moisturizing as well. They also have a more liquid texture with a lower density of beads. The Su-Man and Vasanti are in the middle. The Su-Man has a touch more harsh physical exfoliant with the coffee grounds, and the Vasanti has a mild physical exfoliant yet the acidity of the base is higher. The more extreme exfoliators are the Alpha-H and Omorovicza Refining Facial Polisher
. The Alpha-H has a high density of beads and a high acidity base or chemical exfoliant with glycolic acid. The Omorovicza has a harsher feeling physical scrub related to the edges being not round and organic in shape. I would definitely pick the Omorovicza Gentle Buffing Cleanser as a staple. The Su-Man is nice, the Zelens is similar to the Omorovicza so I don't need both and it's more expensive. The Vasanti I could do without. I'm torn between the Alpha-H and the Omorovicza Refining Facial Polisher if I only had to pick one.
L to R in same order as photo above:
