Is Bar Soap Bad For Your Skin? Only If It's Not Actually Soap

The short answer is no. What may not be great for your skin is the bar that calls itself soap and has been sitting on the store's shelves for years.

The bar soap you grew up hating probably wasn't soap

Our soap is oils, butters, and lye, cooked until it turns into something else entirely. In the soap world, we call it saponification. This is the way it has been done for centuries. One thing that happens naturally is glycerin and glycerin is what keeps your skin from feeling like The Sahara... or the Mojave, if you prefer a wet heat.

Many bars on the shelves of drugstores skip all of that. They are detergent shaped into a bar that looks like soap and heavily scented. Big companies remove the glycerin on purpose to make you spend more on their lotions and other products. 

The tight, squeaky feeling is blamed on "soap". It is not soap. The "soap is drying" complaint is not about soap. It is a detergent, a degreaser, wearing the name of soap.

If you've got seriously sensitive, reactive skin, visit your dermatologist 

One bar does not fit every body or face. If you're dealing with psoriasis, eczema, or anything that a doctor's already treating you for, continue what they told you. This is not a decision any soap company should be making for you. 

What you will never find in a Naked Bar Soap Co. bar

1. Sulfates. A detergent base that strips your skin the way it cleans a dirty pan.

2. Stripped-out glycerin. Real soap makes it. It is left in our soap instead of selling it and leaving you with less.

3. Filler. 12 ingredients or less in almost every product.

What real soap should actually feel like

Clean, not "squeaky clean" or stripped. Slightly moisturized not tight. Your body should not not feel like sandpaper twenty minutes later. 

Quick answers

Is bar soap worse than body wash? No. Most body wash is detergent-based too, so switching isn't an upgrade, it's just a different shape.

Why does my skin feel tight after washing with bar soap? It may mean it wasn't real soap. It probably was a detergent bar. The tight feeling  is your skin's natural oils getting stripped right along with the dirt.

Is bar soap bad for sensitive or reactive skin? If you have a diagnosed skin condition, follow your dermatologist's guidance over any blog, ours included. For most people without one, the drying complaint usually traces back to detergent bars, not soap itself.

What ingredients mean a bar is real soap? Real soap reads short and plain: olive oil, coconut oil, shea butter, things you already recognize. That's what ours lists. Detergent bars read more like a lab report: sodium lauryl sulfate, sodium laureth sulfate. If you need a chemistry degree to get through the ingredient list, that's the tell.

We build ours the old way. Real soap, glycerin left in, 12 ingredients or fewer, nothing added just to make the label look busy.

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