This is a quick guide on how using bar soap can make your skin healthier, and a helpful list of common ingredients that are used in bar soap, and how they benefit you and lead to healthier skin.
With all of the new face and body washes on the market, it’s easy to forget about the option of bar soap. However, don’t put your soap dish away just yet.
Bar soap can be a convenient and important part of men’s skin health, and with the many varieties of bar soap that are on the market today, it is easy to find a bar soap for men that will focus on the individual type of skin that you have.
Bar soaps contain glycerin, and glycerin is often good for people with dermatological issues with their skin, like eczema. Also, there are many bar soap options that are truly fragrance-free, and that can lead to healthier skin, especially if you suffer from allergies to fragrances that can be found in most body washes.
Ingredients
There are many options for ingredients that improve skin health in the bar soap on the market. A few of the known skin health encouraging ingredients are:
- Hemp
- Charcoal
- Palm Oil
- Jojoba
- Coconut Oil
- Shea Butter
- Cocoa Butter
- Olive Oil
Here is a quick breakdown of some of the benefits to the ingredients listed above when it comes to healthier skin as it relates to bar soap for men:
Hemp
Hemp is highly moisturizing, and in soap is often heavy on vitamin E. It is skin soothing, and has major anti-inflammatory properties. It promotes cell renewal, and helps to fight skin aging.
Palm Oil
Palm oil is loaded with antioxidant qualities, it lends to a youthful look while protecting against oxidative damage.
Jojoba
This is a humectant that seals skin with a barrier that prevents moisture loss as you go throughout your day. This can help to prevent bacterial infections, and also with conditions like dandruff and eczema. It is non-comedogenic, hypoallergenic, and an antioxidant.
Coconut Oil
Coconut Oil helps skin look younger, helps skin feel smoother, ensures fewer breakouts occur, and it also has super moisturizing and skin firming capabilities.
Shea Butter
Shea Butter provides natural UV protection, it fights acne, eczema, dermatitis, and psoriasis. It also helps to fade scars and soothe burns. In addition to all of those great qualities, shea butter also fights wrinkles.
Cocoa Butter
Cocoa Butter is great for soothing scars and helps to smooth and further prevent wrinkles.
Olive Oil
Olive Oil lends to a healthier, glowing complexion. It is deeply moisturizing, improves skin tone and texture, and it also combats the signs of aging that your skin can begin to show.
What is in liquid soap that bar soap doesn’t need?
Outside of the fact that it’s very difficult to find a liquid soap that doesn’t contain fragrances and dyes, liquid soap is actually a detergent. Liquid soap is petroleum-based and has chemicals and preservatives that aren’t necessary when making bar soaps. True bar soap is made from glycerin. It’s produced with animal or vegetable fats and an alkali like sodium hydroxide.
The most common oils that are found in bar soap are coconut oil, olive oil, castor oil, soybean oil, and shea butter or cocoa butter. Liquid soap uses potassium hydroxide instead of sodium hydroxide.
Although many of the additives in bar soap can also be found in liquid soaps and body washes, liquid soap isn’t glycerin based. Glycerin is incredibly good for skin, even skin that has major dermatological issues has been found to benefit from glycerin based soaps.
Glycerin is a major component in healthier skin. Many of the options when choosing a bar soap for men will include being glycerin-based somewhere on the label. The additional moisture sealing qualities by ingredients like olive oil and coconut oil help to ensure that your skin doesn’t overdry like some of the old bar soap options used to cause.
How does this fit into my morning routine?
One of the many great things about using a bar soap for men is the ability to stay within the time constraints of your current daily routine. As a matter of fact, the use of bar soap for men in place of liquid soap may actually save you a few minutes per day on your typical routine.
Bar soap doesn’t require any special sponges or mitts, and can actually be used absolutely perfectly with just your hands and water. Simply rub it between your hands as your sink or shower is running over them, and work a lather up. You can apply it with your hands, or with the bar of soap itself.
Because bar soap can be used on every part of your body, from face to feet, you don’t have to acquire any special costs when switching from a liquid soap to a bar soap for men.
You’ll be able to lather every inch of yourself outside of your hair, and wash with one bar of soap. Many bar soaps for men are specially formulated to encourage healthier skin and to prevent much of the dryness that used to be a major issue when using bar soap.
A lot of the more drying bar soaps are because they contain a higher hydrogen ion concentration. This is typically offset by the effects of glycerin, and many of the moisturizing qualities of the additives such as shea butter also help to combat those drying effects.
This means that you won’t typically need to add any special steps into your routine such as added moisturizers and lotions, as the ingredients added to your bar soap to prevent dryness and encourage healthier skin to save you the extra step of moisturizing.
A Few Additional Perks
Bar soap for men has a few extra perks when added to your care routine. It is often praised by the green movement because of its simplistic and minimal packaging.
Also, when using a bar soap for men, there is no plastic anywhere in the process. This means less waste in a landfill because of a soap container.
Bar soap is also usually a less expensive option than liquid soaps. Sometimes, when opting for a bar soap, you can cut your cost by up to half of what you spend on a liquid soap due to the convenience factor of liquid soaps.
Just be sure to keep your bar soap in a soap dish out of the shower spray and you won’t have the soap mush and residue that can sometimes make using a bar soap an unattractive choice in personal care.
Although either choice can be great for cleansing and ridding the skin of excess oil and impurities, your less expensive and simplest choice will be a bar soap for men that caters to your particular skin type.
This will be easy to find if you know your ingredients and additives, and pay attention to the key ingredients listed on the package. If you are concerned about over-drying your skin, you may want to focus on using something that is labeled as a beauty bar because they tend to have less drying ingredients, and focus on infusing the skin with moisture enriching ingredients.
When choosing a bar soap for men that encourages healthier skin, there are many ingredients that are specially marketed for their moisture and antioxidant qualities.
Again, paying close attention to the ingredients that are listed on the packaging should help you make a decision that will be beneficial to you and your skin. Of course, some of the abrasive bar soaps actually lend to healthier skin by exfoliating the skin and sloughing off old skin cells as you use the product.
Don’t forget that the glycerin used to make bar soap for men often can be beneficial if you have dermatological problems such as eczema or acne. Glycerin, hemp, jojoba, coconut oil and shea butter are excellent ingredients as far as assisting in providing a moisture-retaining barrier for your skin that can help you to feel moisturized and fresh all day long.
If you are looking to calm your skin or to fight old scarring from acne or skin conditions try using bar soaps that include hemp, jojoba, shea butter, cocoa butter, and olive oil.
When seeking a bar soap that will help you to fight the effects of aging, or to help smooth out current wrinkles in the skin, try selecting a bar soap with ingredients such as olive oil, cocoa butter, shea butter, coconut oil, palm oil, or hemp.
As long as you pay attention to the effects of the ingredients that are listed on the packaging, and know the potential benefit and impact that they will have on your skin, there is no reason that you cannot achieve healthier skin by using a bar soap for men.
There are so many different options on the market today, it is almost a guarantee that you will be able to find a bar soap that will be great for your particular skin type and any skin conditions or allergies that you may have. In terms of skin benefits, there are so many, it is hard to believe that the bar soap is actually the more cost-effective soap option.
