Lifestyle Choices

Proper cleansing can be the most important part of your skincare routine! Not only is it absolutely necessary to get your face clean without irritating your skin (often a delicate balance), but you can also treat your skin by the way you wash and the soap or cleanser you use. Your bath or shower can be your best friend, your greatest indulgence and your most important key to excellent health and a great, young appearance.

Getting the product right!

Your skin is by nature slightly acidic (with a pH of about 5.5). Until recently, most soaps and cleansers were the opposite — slightly alkaline. The result was dry skin! With advances in cosmetic chemistry, no longer do you have to choose from only harsh, alkaline products. With space age technology, you can test for possible irritants in cleansing products and measure their effectiveness with good accuracy. Although your grandmothers or mother cautioned you never to use soap on your face, that advice is no longer up-to-date. Indeed, with the excellent cleansing products that now exist, it is foolish not to benefit!

Yes, but there’s a problem: how to choose. The number of product choices is mind-boggling! To begin to help you decide what cleanser you should choose — soap, liquid cleanser, cream or lotion — for your own skin, let’s look at the basics.

Choosing a soap

All soaps are combinations of a fat source which lifts away oil and grease — either tallow (from the solid fats of cattle and sheep) or an oil (coconut, palm, peanut, to name a few) — and a salt-like alkaline compound which allows the soap-dirt mixture to dissolve in water for removal.

A mild or gentle soap is not all soap; it contains a lot of moisturizing cream. Super-fatted soaps have relatively more fat; they are less alkaline and therefore milder, but they rinse off less effectively. Transparent soaps are made with glycerin and alcohol, and are best for oily skin. French-milled soaps are merely denser than other soaps; they are pressed so they contain less moisture and less air. Milled soaps last longer and lather well; they sink in the tub! In contrast, floating soaps have extra air so they disappear rapidly. Deodorant soaps contain antibacterial agents which kill the bacteria that cause body odor.

There are many specialty soaps (some sound good enough to eat!): Castile soap with olive oil; cocoa butter, nut, or fruit oil soaps; oatmeal soap. Soaps containing aloe vera or vitamin E sound good, but they actually give no special benefit to the skin since their potentially helpful ingredients are not in contact with the skin for long enough to be absorbed, and are not in a form that is useful on the skin.

Detergents and synthetic soaps were developed during the Second World War. With the wartime shortage of fats and oils, the fats in soaps were replaced with synthetic or natural hydrocarbons. Many detergents exist; they’re not all for dishes and clothes! There are mild synthetic cleansing agents. Their advantage is that they make pleasant soapy suds, even in mineral-rich hard water; and they leave no grimy ring around the bathtub.

Liquid facial and body cleansers or “cleansing solutions” contain the same kinds of ingredients as soap; they are liquid because there is more water in the formulation, but the concentration of active ingredients is similar. (The advantage is that there is no messy bar dissolving in a soap dish.) Your own choice of product will depend upon your skin type, your preference and your personal evaluation of each product.

Cleansing lotions

Cleansing lotions and creams are mostly variants of the Roman physician Galen’s cold cream. They contain a combination of mineral or synthetic oil and wax or petrolatum (or vaseline) which melts on contact with warm skin to dissolve oils and loosen grime. Lotions are “cold” since the water or menthol in the formula evaporate, cooling the skin — the more water, the colder they are. Some cleansing lotions were formulated especially to wipe off greasy or waterproof makeup (particularly mascara). Other lotions are used like soaps and rinsed off with water, rather than wiped off. I recommend that after using a cleansing cream or lotion (unless you are only touching up a makeup smudge), you always wash with a soap or cleanser and then rinse.

The right cleanser

So which cleanser should you choose? As mentioned before, everyone has combination skin. Almost everyone, therefore, would benefit from using a different cleanser in the oily section of the face — the forehead, nose and chin or “T-zone” — than for the drier cheeks and neck, and perhaps still another cleansing product for the body. If your face is especially oily in the morning, after exercise, or after a stressful day at work, use an anti-oil cleanser at that time, with ingredients such as sulfur, salicylic acid, or benzoyl peroxide.

Your skin may change seasonally or in different environments. It might be drier in the winter or the summer (if you foolishly went into the sun) or after a long flight. Everyone should always have at least two cleansers — one for the treatment of oily areas and a milder cleanser for dryness. Although this may sound unnecessarily complicated, it is actually quite simple and the benefits are enormous.

You must be careful to use milder cleansers on your face and hands (which you probably wash more frequently) than on your body. A medical, antibacterial cleanser may be recommended to you by your dermatologist (even for your face) if you have acne. Always avoid using “popular” deodorant cleansers and highly perfumed cleansers on your face, especially if you have particularly dry or sensitive skin. The deodorants and perfumes in these products may act as irritants and they may also be photosensitizing.

Washing can be fun!

The way you wash your skin is as important as the cleansing agent you choose! Washing incorrectly can be truly detrimental to your skin.

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