Soap vs. Beauty Bars
There is a debate in the natural self-care community and even among makers about the use of traditional soap vs syndet (with human-made cleansing agents). A popular example of a syndet is a cleansing bar that a certain major company (rhymes with Love) calls a “beauty bar”. I’ll try to explain the science behind each type...
At Oyabloom, we don’t make medicine, we make beauty products. Still, we live by the Hippocratic oath, “first do no harm”. After all, we’re applying products to the largest and most visible organ of the human body, the skin!
- First we study how the skin does its job of protecting the body and keeping environmental toxins out so well.
- Then we try to enhance its protective properties with emollients, vitamins, and nutrients to keep the skin’s layers strong and supple. We avoid anything that could damage the skin's barrier function.
- We also study how the skin secretes toxins and waste from the body, and avoid any ingredients that could clog pores. We want to encourage the skin to breathe and cleanse.
- Certain cleansers are known to be harsh, like sodium lauryl sulfate (SLS). We don’t use this in our formulations, however it’s important to note that even sulfates can be combined with other cleansers to be milder and non-irritating. On the other hand, even all natural soaps can be irritating if they aren’t formulated correctly.
Making soaps and cleansers that do not damage the skin’s protective barrier yet clean effectively comes down to science.
What is pH?
One important measure of the safety and effectiveness of a soap or cleanser is its pH. PH is a standard measurement for how acidic (think vinegar or lemon juice) or how basic or alkaline (think bleach or drain cleaner) a product is. Water has a neutral pH of 7, which means that when we rinse our skin under running water, we’re neutralizing the pH. The pH of our skin varies on different body parts, but tends to be slightly acidic. Our skin has an acid mantle of about 5.5 pH. Skin quickly returns to its preferred pH after rinsing. We formulate our leave-on lotions and creams to be around 4.8-6 pH or slightly acidic too. Hair, especially damaged hair (from heat, chemicals, or combing friction) needs a slightly more acidic range of 4.5-5.5 pH.
How We Make Natural Soap
Our soap bars are made from a natural saponification process where oils and butters interact with a strong base (sodium or potassium hydroxide). All of the sodium or potassium hydroxide is transformed along with the fats to make soap, and we add extra fat that isn’t used up in the process to make our bar soaps more conditioning. This is ancient technology, probably as ancient as cooking with fire. Imagine humans realizing that fats from roasting a hunted animal, that had dripped into the ashes from the fire, turned into a substance that made cleansing lather! They called it “pot ash” which the element potassium was named after. Because the saponification process uses a strong base, natural bar soap is more alkaline on the pH scale (between 8-10 pH).
Our Hair is Anything but Basic!
Skin is a living, self-regulating organ that can return to its preferred pH of about 5.5 shortly after rinsing. Hair on the other hand, isn’t able to do that. That’s why natural bar soap which is alkaline, isn’t the best choice for washing hair. Especially long or damaged hair. We have specially formulated shampoo and conditioner bars with lower, more acidic pH to better suit hair. These shampoo bars can’t claim to be natural like our cold-processed body soap bars because they use human-made cleansing ingredients. (The industry name for these types of shampoo bars is syndets -short for synthetic detergents). However, since shampoo bars can be pH balanced, we recommend them for hair. Another big bonus is that we’re able to include hair-loving vitamins and botanicals that wouldn’t survive the intense saponification process of traditional soap making! Of course our shampoo bars are non-toxic like everything we make and we do our best to source plant-based ingredients (and sometimes honey) that not only make our hair healthy and beautiful, but are also kind to our planet.
A Note on Facial Cleansing
Many people can and do use natural, cold processed soap on their faces. However, if your face tends to be more sensitive, delicate, or prone to dryness, you could find even carefully formulated natural soap to be irritating and slightly drying. We formulate facial cleansers especially for delicate facial skin using human-made cleansing agents that are combined to be especially mild. We can include water based ingredients like rose water, hibiscus extract, and vitamins in our foaming facial cleansers that wouldn’t survive the traditional soap making process.
What’s Best for You?
Clever marketing claims tend to praise either “natural soap” or “beauty bars” and disparage the other depending on what they’re selling. Hopefully, this article has helped explain the pros and cons of each in a more balanced way. If you’re wondering whether Oyabloom’s cleansing products would work well for you, please join our Tribe for exclusive deals and free samples. Reach out to us through chat on the site or at hello@oyabloom.com for questions about which products might work best for you!