The invention provides personal care or hair liquid cleansing compositions comprising fatty acyl isethionate products having more than 5% by wt. free fatty acid/fatty soaps which are stabilized using specific mixture of long chain and short chain fatty acids/fatty soaps; as well as by using proper ratio of total linear fatty acid/fatty soap to total synthetic surfactants (the total synthetic is the sum of (1) fatty acyl surfactant component of (a)—that is, the “pure” fatty acyl isethionate which does not include free fatty acids and/or fatty acid soaps in the fatty acyl surfactant “product”—and (2) the synthetic co-surfactant of (b)).