I wrote about sensitive skin last week (you can view it here) and within minutes soap lab's clients started asking for the best lotion or cream for sensitive skin. Not any other product but lotion and cream.
And it got me thinking like why are people with problematic skin are obsessed with creams or lotions? Why not any other products? Then i realized that most commercial advertisement for these group of people is creams and lotions.
Interesting isnt it? But here is the thing; regardless of how much of creams or lotions you slap on your skin; its not going to reduce your skin problem because the main culprit thats making your skin giving you problem is your cleansing agents aka soaps!
Lets talk about how sensitive skin happens
As mentioned in the previous post; sensitive skin is because you are sensitive to some certain ingredient in a product. So what happens is when you are in contact with this ingredient; your skin tends to have a chain of reaction (called inflammatory reactions) againts the ingredients and one of the reaction is 'loss of water' that will eventually dry your skin.
So when your skin is dry; it tends to tighten; resulting in you getting this itchy feelings. After that what happens is of course you will scratch it. The more you scratch; the more the skin gets hurt resulting in bruises etc. Over time it will leave ugly marks on your skin and well; you just got to wait it out for 4-5 months before your skin gets back to its normal stage.
So what has this got to do with soap?
Your skin naturally already have oils; created by sebum. This oils are made to make sure its covers your skin so that your skin is been protected and you have a this layer of oil that prevents water from inside your skin being evaporated out.Now when you use soap; what it does is it has different kind of cleansing agents called surfactants. Surfactants depending on its kind; can be strong and some can be mild. When you apply this surfactants on your skin; it does its job of cleaning dirt from your skin (dust , makeup etc) but at the same time; it will also remove these natural oils from your skin.
What happens when Oils are removed?
When the oils are removed from your skin surface; there is nothing much left to protect your skin's water to evaporate out resulting in dry skin.
Now if you are one of those people with hyperactive sebum glands; the moment the brain detects the oil on your skin is removed; it will automatically instruct the glands to over produce oils (thats why if you realize when you were a teenager and used strong cleansers; your face tends to get oily very fast).
But what if you are no longer a teenager with hyperactive sebum. What happens to your skin when the oils are removed? It will then cause the whole chain of reaction as above resulting in itch, scratch and bruises.
So what do we do then?
Here is the thing. When this happens; of course your will then tend to want to put moisturiser on your skin to make sure this 'drying' effect reduces right?
So thats when the commercial advertisement works; get creams and lotions.
How do Beauty Company Make Money?
When it comes to making cream and lotions; the most expensive creams are the best. Why do i say that? Because when you are choosing a lotion or cream; the best would be the ones that has fatty acids (oils) that are similar to our skin oil thats produced by sebum.
Now the more identical they are; the better it is and the companies that produces these oils know it; so its usually high priced.
One of the closest to the skin oil is jojoba oil. So you can imagine how expensive a product using these oils are. Another is squalene (its from shark). and those which is vegan based are from plants.
Both of these are very expensive and can go up to thousands of Ringgit per kilo. I found one squalene based product for RM 1000+ for 10ml! thats how expensive they are and for you to replace the oils you removed using those soaps; these are the best.
But why remove when you can change your soap?
Really? Why go through all this hardship of removing the oils; and then looking for expensive moisturisers when all you need to do is retain the body oils on your skin? Why not just change your soaps?
Which type of soaps should you use?
Look for those with milder surfactants. Usually sulphate based surfactants are quite harsh. Look for one that is not.
Another method is of course to make your own soap. I love making cold processed soap because i could actually adjust the fats (oils) i wanted to use in there to the mildness i wanted. And because its all nice and filled with luxurious oils; you could actually feel the difference in your skin immediately. Truthfully i dont even use creams and lotions anymore because of this.
But handmade soaps are expensive!
Yes handmade soaps are expensive because of the butters and oils that you add in but imagine not needing to look for those expensive creams and moisturisers anymore because of this! Isn't that awesome? Try it out. You will notice a difference in a week!
I dont know how to make these handmade soaps!
No worries! We in soap lab have few cold process soap recipes that you can follow. To view them click here.
Do you have a class?
Yes we do but these are all online classes and its conducted via facebook group. If you are interested to find out more click here.
Ill be talking more about making your own soaps after this so do check back in next week.
Thank you so much for reading and if you have any questions; do comment below. If you would want us to talk about any topic; do leave a comment below too.
Thank you;
Love; Nisha
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