I grew up on Dove soap and it always leaves my skin feeling nice and smooth. But the majority of other soaps I've tried leave my skin feeling all squeaky/sticky while still in the shower. I hate that. I want to try some homemade soaps but want to avoid that feeling.
I love that squeaky clean feeling, gels and Dove make me feel like I had an oil bath, all slimy. It's just that soap strips the dirt and oil with it.
Handmade soaps have natural glycerin which is a byproduct of soapmaking. Commercial soaps take this glycerin out, that's why your skin squeaks after washing. It also means that the soap stripped any extra, natural oils on your skin.
"You're not fully clean until you've stripped away all you natural body oils" just doesn't roll off the tongue the same way. I don't like the really heavy glycerin some handmade soaps contain, but I have fairly oily skin. I like triple milled soaps myself as they provide a balance between the oil stripping detergent bars that are most soaps, and the high glycerin bars that leave too much behind for my skin.
I remember that commercial! :happy102 So are you guys saying i'm S.O.L, or are there handmade soaps (with glycerin) that won't give me that sticky feeling? I used a grocery store bought bar yesterday that has the following ingredients: SODIUM TALLOWATE, WATER, SODIUM COCOATE, GLYCERIN, FRAGRANCE, SODIUM CHLORIDE, TITANIUM DIOXIDE Very sticky.
Right now I'm using a bar of Irish Spring with Aloe, and it doesn't leave that tight squeaky feeling, very smooth after. When it's used up I'm looking forward to the bar of Mitchell's Wool Fat and Borotalco I just received.:happy036
Hard water can greatly contribute to this feeling, Dove is, BTW, not strictly speaking soap. Its a cleansing bar, that may have some soap in it along with detergents and SLS ect.
The real problem is the fact that we spend more time paying attention to the ingredients so we can understand how things react. We are simply more attuned due to our addiction to shaving products. Wait did I write addiction, I meant to write obsession, no, no I meant to write compulsion...oh well. happy102:happy102
I currently have at least 5 or 6 bar soaps in rotation and for your predicament I would suggest either a triple mill or maybe a bar of Dr Bronners.
The "stickiness"" you describe is actually "soap scum" left on your skin from hard water's interaction with soap. Mostly it consists of calcium stearate, calcium tallowate etc... Calcium & Magnesium are multivalent ions (meaning they have a +2 charge). Sodium and Potassium used to make soap are monovalent ions (only +1 charge)... Because the the calcium & magnesium have a stronger charge, they tend to strip off the sodium & potassium ion and replace it on the tallow, sterate, palmate, cocoate etc, forming soap scum. It is the soap scum that you are feeling, not the soap. As dove (sodium & potassium hydroxide - yielding sodium stearate, potassium sterate, sodium tallowate...ring a bell?) Dove, while it does have tallowates etc. in it, has a detergent as it's first ingredient (Sodium Lauroyl Isethionate) and it's 5th-ish ingredient (Sodium Isethionate)... Also dove contains Tetrasodium Etidronate, which is a chelating agent (meaning it binds to the calcium and potassium carbonate in your water before the potassium and calcium have a chance to react with the soap in the bar... (It's a water softener) In effect the tetrasodium etidronate reduces the soap scum on your skin, combined with the main ingredient that doesn't react with hard water in the first place, and the Dipropylene Glycol, which has a slick feel to it (think the slimy feel of antifreeze - similar structure, although dipropylene glycol is low-toxicity) For that "soap scum" that gets past the chelating agents, and which isn't washed off by the detergents in the "soap" dove also contains Tetrasodium EDTA, or another name for it is ethylenediaminetetraacetic acid. Ethylenediaminetetraacetic acid, or tetrasodium EDTA's primary purpose in industry is to dissolve lime scale. Any wonder that Dove leaves your skin feeling nice and slick, whereas a regular soap and hard water leave it feeling "sticky"? My suggestion, if you have hard water and are bothered by soap scum feeling and don't want to use dove, would be to try find a shower gel that doesn't have any soap in it (most don't...) based on some sort of a detergent. Detergents don't react with hard water the same way soaps do, and should provide you with a "soap scum free skin" feeling (Not all detergents are petrol based, some are based on coconut oils... and just because something like SLS - Sodium laurly sulfate is the same general detergent used in dish soap or laundry detergent, does NOT mean it's necessarily bad for your skin... As long as it's blended in the right concentration. After all a little orange oil can add some nice flavor to a food, but concentrate it, and you have a very nice degreaser...) A hand made soap will somewhat counteract the sticky feeling because of the glycerin in it... Also some base oils will react slightly less than, say, sodium stearate, with the hard water, which can lead to a little less soap scum on the skin. You might give 1 or 2 different artisan soaps a try to see how they work with your water.
And to give you an idea between soaps (like Ivory and Dove) and a handmade soap. Ivory soap has: sodium tallowate, sodium cocoate or sodium palm kernelate, water, sodium chloride, sodium silicate, magnesium sulfate, and fragrance. It's soap with the glycerin removed and milled under high pressure in commercial machines. The product's slogan, "99.44 % Pure", was based on the results of an analysis by an independent laboratory the founder's son, Harley Procter, hired to demonstrate that Ivory was more pure than the castile soap then available. Yes they float, because air is mixed into them. The fragrance is citronella. Dove Beauty Bar has: Sodium Lauroyl Isethionate, Stearic Acid, Sodium Tallowate, Sodium Palmitate, Lauric Acid, Sodium Isethionate, Water, Sodium Stearate, Cocamidopropyl Betaine, Sodium Cocoate, Sodium Palm Kernelate (Palm Kernel Oil), Sodium Chloride, Tetrasodium EDTA, Tetrasodium Etidronate, Maltol, Titanium Dioxide (CI 77891) Or Sodium Cocoyl Isethionate, Stearic Acid, Sodium Tallowate, Water, Sodium Isethionate, Coconut Acid, Sodium Stearate, Cocamidopropyl Betaine, Sodium Cocoate or Sodium Palm Kernelate, Sodium Chloride, Titanium Dioxide, Sweet Almond Oil, Rosewood Oil, Tetrasodium EDTA, Trisodium Etidronate, BHT, Cedarwood Oil, Rose Oil, Disodium Cocamido-MEA-Sulfosuccinate, Cetyl Alcohol, Tocopheryl Acetate. Dove is a synthetic bar and not a true soap. It is, however made with beef fat and a masking fragrance. In the commercial, the film on the glass they are talking about is from the natural glycerin in the soap (not soap scum) Glycerin helps retain your own body moisture and also draws moisture to you. However, commercial soaps, mostly detergents, strip your skin of all its oils. That is why you usually need to use a moisturizer after washing. Handmade soap uses pure ingredients, leaves the natural glycerin intact and has great creamy lather without stripping the skin.
