When was the last time you questioned what you’re washing your face with? If it’s soap, that’s good enough, right? It bubbles, smells fresh, and has a clean feeling. Well, now that we’ve established what soap is and what soap does, there’s a big catch, traditional soap and your skin’s microbiome do not play well together, and the move toward more soap-free cleansers isn’t just a marketing trend with big budget dollars. There’s a science behind what you’re putting on your face.
Understanding Soap
Traditional soap is created through a chemical reaction via saponification. Fat or oil is combined with an alkali (aka lye), and the resulting substance is soap with a pH between 9-10 (very alkaline). Your skin is naturally at a pH of 4.5-5.5 (slightly acidic). Immediately this presents an issue in that your skin is now exposed to a pH much different than what it prefers. Furthermore, this increases the likelihood of destabilizing the acid mantle, the thin protective layer of skin atop your body that keeps moisture in and irritants out.
As such, the skin barrier exists as the foundation that supports your overall health. It’s comprised of skin cells bound together by lipids (fats), ultimately creating a brick wall (cells as bricks; lipids as mortar) that keeps water in and bacteria, toxins, pollutants and allergens out. When soap strips away those natural lipids, the ability for the barrier to exist becomes compromised. Thus, seeking out that tight, squeaky, clean feeling is more your skin telling you that it’s been compromised too much than an actual sign of cleanliness.
This is where a soap free skin cleanser comes into play to not disrupt the pH balance as greatly nor strip away necessary oils.
How Soap-Free Formulas Work
Soap-free formulas clean differently from traditional soaps because they do not use alkaline pH as their source of power to remove dirt. Soap-free formulas utilize synthetic detergent-like substances (syndets) that pH balance to the 4.5-5.5 natural skin level. The names of soap-free ingredients may confound you and come from complicated vocabulary, but essentially, ingredients ending in “-ate” or “-eth” surround particles of dirt, grease and makeup, helping to lift them away from the surface without needing rigorous scrubbing or chemical disruption.
Soap-free formulas work by providing gentleness to those types of particles that don’t belong while leaving those particles that do belong intact. Soap-free formulas work where their intention should be without destroying skin’s protective barrier in the process.
What You’ll Feel – And Why It’s Good.
After using traditional soap for so long, it’s expected to feel clean despite lacking the skills of rejuvenation. However, after switching over to a soap-free formula, often within a week or two, many people find it doesn’t feel as clean as expected. That’s where unlearning years of chemical marketing comes into play; soap-free cleansers make you feel comfortable, and they should.
Skin no longer feels dry and over-compensated for because it isn’t stripped of its natural elements. Redness subdues if active challenges like eczema or rosacea are present as pH-disrupting elements are no longer attacking the compromised skin barrier only to overwork it with repair time. It’s a give-and-take relationship between product and no longer frustrating response.
Who Benefits Most from Soap-Free Cleansing?
Soap-free cleansers impact everyone essentially, but dramatic improvements will occur for specific skin types.
For example, dry or dehydrated skin always finds loving moisturizers finally kicking in as they’re no longer challenged by stripped skin begging for help. Oily or acne-prone skin may bristle at soap-free changes at first; however, with time they learn that traditional soap is a dysregulated response, sometimes harsh cleaning triggers oil production in an attempt to compensate for what was taken away.
Sensitive skin is self-explanatory due to minimized irritation symptoms and aging skin needs help since natural lipid creation decreases with age. Why exacerbate an already complicated situation for skin that should be getting additional help retaining its barrier?
What Ingredients Are in Soap-Free Cleansers
Soap-free does not mean gentle; it’s the formulation that makes the difference.
Professional soap-free cleansers contain those elements that add to the benefit of the skin barrier, glycerin to attract moisture or ceramides to repair the fat layer existing between cells, with some adding buffering agents to ensure the solution remains within acidic realms for soap-free cleaning.
What professional soap free cleansers do not have are sulfates (like sodium lauryl sulfate), fragrance or drying agents in the form of certain alcohols; while these potentially are not in soap either, they can strip even more of what’s important from your face.
How To Switch
There’s no recommended protocol for switching unless you feel more comfortable transitioning part by part instead of everything at once (just switch your face wash). Give it time, at least two weeks before judging results, as your skin needs to adjust and heal what’s happened if you’ve been a life-long pro-soap user.
Expect texture to feel different; creamier and gel-like soaps will be more akin than lathery suds. Bubbles do not equate cleanliness, and while we’ve been marketed for decades now that they do, it’s time to adjust our mentality. Overall, your skin barrier protects you incredibly while functioning; assist it by choosing products that give it less work to do by going against natural chemistry. The science isn’t difficult; it’s just respecting what your body knows how to do best without challenge.