LANEIGE's New Balance Mode Line Pairs Rice and Glycolic Acid for Oily, Sensitive Skin

LANEIGE has a new skincare line called Balance Mode, built for a skin type combo that most brands treat as opposites: oily and sensitive at once. The lineup launches with the Balance Mode Rice Foaming Deep Cleanser, a 250ml gel-to-foam wash priced at S$32 on LANEIGE's own Singapore store, built around a rice and niacinamide complex plus glycolic acid, rice micro-beads and a phyto-enzyme.

The pitch is pretty specific. If your skin gets oily by midday but also flares up at the first whiff of a strong acid or scrub, you've probably had to pick a lane: either a stripping oil-control cleanser that leaves your face tight, or a gentle sensitive-skin formula that does nothing about shine. Balance Mode is LANEIGE's attempt to stop making people choose.

What's actually in the formula

The core of it is what LANEIGE calls a Rice-inamide complex, a mix of niacinamide at 1,250 ppm with rice-derived actives at 2,012.5 ppm, pulled from rice bran water, fermented rice, rice protein and rice inositol. Layered on top are three different ways of clearing out pores: glycolic acid as the chemical exfoliant, roughly 6,300 rice micro-beads per bottle as the physical one, and a phyto-enzyme doing enzymatic work on leftover buildup.

To keep that combination from going too far, the formula also carries ceramide NP and glycerin, and it's made in a slightly acidic, pH-balanced range that LANEIGE describes as non-stripping. It's fragrance-free, dermatologist-tested and labeled non-comedogenic. The texture starts as a gel and whips into a dense micro-foam as you massage it in, which is the part of the formula doing double duty: one or two pumps for a daily wash, two to three pumps on dry skin if you're using it to take off makeup first.

Does the brand's own testing back this up?

LANEIGE is citing its own in-house numbers here, so read them as brand-reported rather than independently verified. The company says the cleanser removes 99.4% of pore impurities and 99% of ultrafine dust immediately after a single use, and that sebum drops by 79.5% right after washing. It also claims the Rice-inamide complex shows 32% better barrier efficacy than standard niacinamide alone at the same concentration.

There's a longer study behind the skin-feel claims too. LANEIGE says a four-week trial run by the Global Medical Research Center in October and November of 2025, on 30 women aged 20 to 49, found that 96% felt their skin was thoroughly cleansed and not oily, 96% said it stayed matte all day, and 93% described it as softer and smoother. Pore volume was also reported to visibly shrink over the four weeks. LANEIGE notes individual results may vary from the study, which is worth keeping in mind before you expect a specific number on your own face.

Where to get it and who it's for

The cleanser is sold on its own for S$32, or as part of a Balance Mode Starter Set with a moisturizer and a peel-off mask for S$41 on LANEIGE's Singapore site. It's also showing up at other retailers carrying LANEIGE, including Sephora and Cult Beauty, with pricing that varies by region and currency, so check your local LANEIGE or retailer listing rather than converting the Singapore price directly.

LANEIGE is positioning Balance Mode specifically for oily, breakout-prone and sensitive skin rather than any one of those on its own, which is the more interesting part of the launch. Most oil-control cleansers assume your skin can take a beating, and most sensitive-skin formulas assume you don't have excess sebum to deal with. Whether the triple exfoliation actually reads as gentle on reactive skin is the thing to test for yourself, since a cleanser doing glycolic acid, physical beads and enzymes at once is a lot of activity packed into one step, even at a pH that's meant to soften the blow.

If you've been stuck rotating between two different cleansers depending on how your skin feels that week, this is the first LANEIGE launch built to end that rotation rather than add a third bottle to it.