I’ve tried dozens upon dozens of toners in clean beauty and am sharing an in-depth guide to my OG faves and some new faves! I strongly believe face toners made with natural and organic ingredients is essential for healthy skin! No matter what your skin type is, hydration is absolutely crucial, but often overlooked.

While many might think toners are unnecessary, dermatologists and skin experts know that they play an important role in skin health. Not only do they balance your skin’s pH after you use tap water and cleanser, toners also properly prep the skin to receive the products you apply next. If you’re wondering if you need toner, when to use it and how plus my favorite natural toners, keep reading!

Benefits of using Toner

• Hydrates skin and infuses it with nutrients
• Balances skin’s pH
• Removes impurities and traces of dirt, bacteria, and makeup
• Minimizes the appearance of enlarged pores
• Allows for maximum product absorption and efficacy

When and How to Use Toner

After cleansing: Toner should be applied after skin is cleansed thoroughly and before applying serums and other skincare products.

How to apply toner: Most toners come in a spray bottle, so it only needs to be spritzed onto skin! Others come without a spray nozzle and need to be transferred onto a cotton round first. I like to use a reusable cotton round to minimize waste and apply enough to soak about half the round (not all the way to the edges!). Then I rub it all around my face gently without using too much pressure.

Ingredients to Avoid in Toner

• Alcohol: Avoid toners with alcohol because they can be overly drying and strip skin of its natural oils
• Fragrance: Hormone disrupting
• Artificial colors: Have no purpose and can lead to skin reactions
• Sulfates (SLS and SLES): Can be irritating and disrupt skin’s protective barrier

Alpyn Beauty Pore Perfecting Liquid

This is a gentle yet effective exfoliating toner containing a blend of wildcrafted botanicals and 2% BHA. I use this with a cotton round and swipe gently all over my face. I really feel like this gets the residual gunk out of my pores after cleansing, smoothes my skin and leaves my skin feeling super refreshed. It’s absolutely loaded with botanical extracts like borage extract to soothe and hydrate skin, Tremella Mushroom, Alfalfa extract, Chokeberry extract along with high-performance skincare actives like Niacinamide, Vitamin C (in the form of Ascorbic Acid), Sodium Hyaluronate, Peptide and Salicylic Acid. I feel the Alpyn Beauty toner does so much more than just hydrate skin and works as an intense treatment.

Price: $39 for 4 fl oz

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Beekman 1802 Hyaluronic Acid & Squalane Facial Toner Mist

I find Beekman 1802’s toner mist to be one of the most innovative toners in clean beauty! It’s a bi-phase formula so it needs a good shake to mix up all the ingredients. The formula is sooo varied and versatile. It’s got an array of hard-working ingredients, including adaptogens, probiotics, botanical oils and herbal extracts that hydrate, tone, reduce irritation, balances the microbiome, and minimize pores. Yes, it’s safe for sensitive skin too! This has goat milk, colostrum, mugwort, Squalane, Hyaluronic Acid, Bifida Ferment Lysate, Honey, Comfrey, Blue Thistle, Whey Protein, Sea Buckthorn Oil, Glycerin and more. The bottle is HUGE and double the size of other natural face toners. Another thing I love about it is the super fine gentle mist that sprays out widely so it gets a lot of my face at once.

Price: $36 for 8.1 fl oz

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Tower 28 SOS Daily Rescue Facial Spray (Best for Acne!)

Tower 28’s hypochlorous spray is my top pick and recommendation for acne prone skin! This is super effective on active breakouts and extremely irritated skin. Hypochlorous acid is anti-inflammatory + antibacterial, helping defend skin from harmful bacteria while soothing irritation. I like to keep my travel sized version with me when I travel so I can spray myself while on the plane where I’m exposed to all sorts of gross bacteria in the air. The ingredients are super simple – there’s just water, sodium chloride and hypochlorous acid with no pointless ingredients or toxins.

Price: $28 for 4 oz

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Mixsoon Bifida Ferment Essence (Best for Skin Barrier Repair!)

This clean K-beauty brand is available in the US and they make a single-ingredient toner containing just one pure, undiluted ingredient: a highly effective natural probiotic ingredient called Bifida Ferment Lysate. Bifida Ferment a probiotic rich in proteins, minerals, lactose, lactic acid, vitamins and more. This is amaaazing for repairing the skin barrier and making it stronger and overall skin rejuvenation. If your skin barrier is damaged, I highly recommend adding this super clean and simple probiotic toner to your skincare routine. I use this with a cotton round, but because it’s made up of one core ingredient you can also add it to existing toners and skincare products.

Price: $32 for 3.38 fl oz

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Cocokind Rosewater Toner (Under $15)

This is a super simple toner, but in a really good way! It’s made with USDA certified organic rose hydrosol (not to be confused with rosewater which is just rose essential oil mixed with water). Rosewater is excellent for all skin types and is soothing, hydrating, and balancing and pH balancing. I appreciate how budget friendly it is is for a 100% organic product. I love using this for both my skin and my scalp since it’s so affordable and versatile!

Price: $14.97 for 4 fl oz

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For Very Dry Skin: Whamisa Organic Flowers Deep Rich Essence Toner

I highly recommend using Whamisa’s organic toner if you have very dry or dehydrated skin! An essence toner is a thick toner with a more unctuous consistency that’s almost serum-like while remaining a liquid. If literally nothing works to fix your dry skin, this is going to save it.

Whamisa’s Organic Flowers Toner has such a bouncy texture and it’s almost entirely organic. It’s enhanced with certified organically grown aloe Vera extract, oat kernel, artemisia extract along with flowers, fruits, and seeds using the traditional fermentation method. By fermenting their ingredients they’re able to make the nutrients more concentrated and easily absorbed by our bodies.

The floral scent is sooo heavenly. It’s delicately fragrant and soothing yet uplifting – a guaranteed mood booster!

Price: $41 for 5.2 fl oz

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Three Ships Beauty Fresh Start Lime Pearl + Prickly Pear 5% PHA Resurfacing Treatment

I find Three Ships Beauty Fresh Start toner to be a fantastic affordable option for a number of reasons. Most natural exfoliating toners retail for around $40, especially if they’re packaged in glass, while Three Ships’ costs under $20 after discount. It has a blend of gentle yet effective plant-based alpha hydroxy acids in decent concentrations. There’s 5% Prickly Pear PHAs (poly-hydroxy acid is gentle enough for sensitive skin) and Lime Pearl AHAs. I don’t feel any uncomfortable tingling sensation like I do with stronger acid exfoliators. I use a cotton round with this toner and my skin always feels refreshed and soft after.

Price: $24 for 3.4 fl oz

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Ursa Major 4-in-1 Essential Face Tonic (Best Value for Money)

This all natural and organic toner that’s oh so versatile. It removes oil and grime, exfoliates gently and clarifies with a AHA/BHA complex and, of course, hydrates skin. I love that it begins in an organic aloe leaf juice base and contains sugarcane, which is a natural source of glycolic acid (alpha hydroxy acid), green tea, birch sap, willow bark (natural source of beta hydroxy acid), sodium hyaluronate and more. My skin feels toned, soothed and hydrated after using this tonic and my man also loves it! Ursa Major actually provides the best value for money among natural toners in the clean beauty market. It retails for $32 for 8 fl oz, which means it’s only $16 for the regular 4 oz that most other products offer.

It has a beautiful fresh earthy scent from Fir needle oil, frankincense, rosemary and lavender feels like a bath in the forest, even if you haven’t left your house all day.

Price: $32 for 8 fl oz

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Amala Beauty Rehydrating Toning Essence (Best for Mature Skin!)

My top recommendation for mature skin experiencing real signs of aging and deep wrinkles is Amala Beauty’s Rehydrating Toning Essence. This is THE luxury splurge if there ever was one for guaranteed hydration (and I’m the only clean beauty blogger that they have a code with). Amala is an organic line used primarily at prestigious European spas for their elite clientele and has some of the most effective (and most expensive) treatment products I’ve ever tried. The consistency is super rich and milky, hence why it’s called an essence, and deeply deeply hydrating. I’m talking next level hydration that really lasts. The sophisticated formula contains vegan bio-ferment actives, Peony, 23K Rose Gold, Vitamin C-rich Amla, Spirulina, cold-pressed chia seed oil, Alpha-Glucan Oligosaccharide, Hyaluronic Acid and more. It comes as pump not a spray, so technically a cotton round should be used, but I don’t like to waste a single drop so I just apply it directly to my skin.

Price: $78 for 3.38 fl oz

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Mad Hippie Hydrating Nutrient Mist

This is a great budget friendly all natural face toner that’s under $20 and PACKED with antioxidants and botanical extracts. I’m so glad Mad Hippie changed the packaging because the pump simply sucked before. This has got an impressive number of actives that would rival clean beauty toners twice the price. It contains Ginkgo Biloba, White Pine Bark, Reservatrol, Hesperedin, Pomegranate Seed Extract, Milk Thistle, Vitamin C, Resveratrol, Ferulic Acid and so much more! It’s a super lightweight mist.

Price: $15.99 for 4 fl oz

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Evanhealy Facial Tonic Hydrosoul

Evanhealy makes these gorgeous single-ingredient USDA Organic hydrosol toners that aren’t crazy overpriced. While most other clean beauty brands will only offer a rose hydrosol toner, Evanhealy has sooo many different kinds from lavender to immortelle and holy basil to yarrow. They are careful about their sourcing and the ingredients are high quality. My skin feels hydrated and my mind feels soothed from the incredible natural scent.

Price: $31.99 for 4 fl oz / $52.50 for 8 oz refill

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Blissoma Sacred Waters Tonique

I highly recommend Blissoma’s organic toners if the potency and vibrancy of living plants in your skincare matters to you. This is an artisanal organic skincare line rooted in holistic practices and their face toner uses organic herbs freshly extracted at potent, healing concentrations. Imagine taking Evanhealy’s organic holy basil hydrosol I talked about above and then loading it with a dozen more organic botanical herbs and extracts. You get Blissoma’s Sacred Waters Tonique. I looove how special this artisanal formula is, how healing it can be for the skin and the attention to quality and detail put into this product.

Price: $56 for 4 fl oz

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