Body Wash vs Liquid Soap

[BodyWasher]

Newbie question, but what's the difference here?

I see so many resources out there on making liquid soap (typically hand/dish wash), but not body wash. I'm not sure what the differences are in simple terms when it comes to the recipe and process, however.

I bought Making Natural Liquid Soaps by Catherine Failor, but it is pretty dense and there seems to be a zillion ways to make liquid soap. Failor also uses some nasty stuff like Borax to thicken (despite the "Natural" in the title? Hey it was 2000). I just started reading Ashley Green's Ultimate Guide to Liquid soap, and it's also pretty dense. She opened with wanting to make a nice body wash but i'm 150 pages in and still in the background info section of the book. Maybe there are some tips in there, but I'm feeling a little dumb not knowing the difference between dish soap and body wash in simple terms.

 

[lsg]

Body wash should be a lot milder than dish soap. To me a body wash is one made from surfactants. There are many ecofriendly surfactants.How to Make Hand & Body Washes - Humblebee & Me

 

[BodyWasher]

Body wash should be a lot milder than dish soap. To me a body wash is one made from surfactants. There are many ecofriendly surfactants.How to Make Hand & Body Washes - Humblebee & Me

When you say surfactant, do you mean the low-pH kind used in the cosmetics industry for lotions etc. that stay on your skin for a while, or is that a more general term that would include high-pH soaps as well?

I noticed Humblebee uses a lot of acidic surfactants. Some exotic sounding stuff like Sodium Lauryl Sulfoacetate, Coco Glucoside, Cocamidopropyl Betaine, glycol distearate and on. If you look up these ingredients on EWG, 3/4 are restricted and cannot be used without "adequate substantiation", and the 4th is Cocamidopropyl Betaine which scores pretty poorly. I get that the difference between a medicine and a poison is the dose and all that, but with some of the more recent research on endocrine disruptors coming out, the threshold for poison seems to be getting lower and lower and anything that bioaccumulates I want to straight up avoid.

This seems to be a totally different world from cold process soap bar making.

 

[lsg]

When you say surfactant, do you mean the low-pH kind used in the cosmetics industry for lotions etc. that stay on your skin for a while, or is that a more general term that would include high-pH soaps as well?

I noticed Humblebee uses a lot of acidic surfactants. Some exotic sounding stuff like Sodium Lauryl Sulfoacetate, Coco Glucoside, Cocamidopropyl Betaine, glycol distearate and on. If you look up these ingredients on EWG, 3/4 are restricted and cannot be used without "adequate substantiation", and the 4th is Cocamidopropyl Betaine which scores pretty poorly. I get that the difference between a medicine and a poison is the dose and all that, but with some of the more recent research on endocrine disruptors coming out, the threshold for poison seems to be getting lower and lower and anything that bioaccumulates I want to straight up avoid.

This seems to be a totally different world from cold process soap bar making.

These ingredients are really not as exotic as you think. Those of us who have made shampoos, bubble bath and body wash are familiar with these products. Don't believe every scare story you read on the internet. Lye is a very dangerous chemical unless used properly. You don't want to expose your body to raw lye or ingest it, yet it is used in making cold process soap. You shouldn't expose your skin to or ingest undiluted EOs or FOs, yet people use them all of the time in soap and B&B products. Make sure you know the facts before making a judgement. If you aren't comfortable with using the products mentioned, by all means, don't use them. That doesn't mean they will poison you or disrupt the body's normal function, if used properly. It is a different world than that of cold process soap making, but not necessarily a bad one.

 

[natik]

Newbie question, but what's the difference here?

I see so many resources out there on making liquid soap (typically hand/dish wash), but not body wash. I'm not sure what the differences are in simple terms when it comes to the recipe and process, however.

I bought Making Natural Liquid Soaps by Catherine Failor, but it is pretty dense and there seems to be a zillion ways to make liquid soap. Failor also uses some nasty stuff like Borax to thicken (despite the "Natural" in the title? Hey it was 2000). I just started reading Ashley Green's Ultimate Guide to Liquid soap, and it's also pretty dense. She opened with wanting to make a nice body wash but i'm 150 pages in and still in the background info section of the book. Maybe there are some tips in there, but I'm feeling a little dumb not knowing the difference between dish soap and body wash in simple terms.

@IrishLass posted a very nice body wash recipe back in 2016 called My Creamy Cocoa/Shea GLS Tutorial (would attach the link, but have no idea how). It is a very nice body wash. Check it out.

 

[AliOop]

@IrishLass posted a very nice body wash recipe back in 2016 called My Creamy Cocoa/Shea GLS Tutorial (would attach the link, but have no idea how). It is a very nice body wash. Check it out.

Here is the link to that recipe. I make this for my SIL as his daily body wash. He absolutely loves it and always lets me know when he's getting close to needing a refill.

 

[DeeAnna]

Body wash can refer to any product made with any kind of detergent, including lye-based soap. This name is purely a title you put on the product container. A "wash" typically implies a flowable cleanser, rather than a solid cleanser, but "body wash" doesn't really tell you anything more than that. A "body wash" could be entirely a lye-based liquid soap or it could be entirely based on synthetic detergents or it could be a blend of soap and syndet.

We were just having a discussion in another thread about lotion being used as hair conditioner -- how you can use a single product as a skin lotion and as a hair conditioner. Same goes for liquid cleansers -- one product could be called a body wash, liquid cleanser, and shampoo and used for all of those purposes.

Liquid soap is another story. When correctly used, the term "soap" means specifically a detergent made by saponifying fats with an alkali. The word "soap" is misused a lot by consumers to mean any type of cleanser, but it does have a clear and specific meaning if used properly.