Is HP better for acne soap? And recipe recommendations?

[Lil Outlaws]

I was thinking it may be best to do HP for an acne type soap, to help retain some of the properties of the additives? (or is that just silly?)

I'm thinking neem (I have ground neem leaf powder and neem oil also), tea tree oil, lavender.. What else is good for acne soap? I have things like clays (french green, bentonite, kaolin, etc), charcoal, herbs...

So the question is, is HP really the better option? And does anyone have any good recipes they'd recommend? As far as base oils I have crisco (generic and the new version with palm), soybean, corn, peanut, lard, coconut, olive...

?

 

[timbudtwo]

I was thinking it may be best to do HP for an acne type soap, to help retain some of the properties of the additives? (or is that just silly?)

I'm thinking neem (I have ground neem leaf powder and neem oil also), tea tree oil, lavender.. What else is good for acne soap? I have things like clays (french green, bentonite, kaolin, etc), charcoal, herbs...

So the question is, is HP really the better option? And does anyone have any good recipes they'd recommend? As far as base oils I have crisco (generic and the new version with palm), soybean, corn, peanut, lard, coconut, olive...

?

Tea tree is most effective at about 1oz ppo or more, to be honest. Studies I have seen show that tea tree is as effective as the same % of benzoyl peroxide (really the only other thing that truly treats acne, salicylic acid does nothing). I use an oxy face wash and it is 10% benzoyl peroxide. I also add in some tea tree and I notice a little improvement.

Charcoal will help if you are looking for exfoliation. But often exfoliation will cause irritation if overdone and can cause more harm than good.

Also, if you are selling this, do know that saying this treats acne or any skin condition will take this out of the "soap" category and put it into a medicine or cosmetic category which has a different set of laws.

As far as a recipe goes. Make it hard and creamy. Use the new crisco with the palm, use some olive oil, and some coconut (prolly 10% max.) I don't ever use corn because I don't like the soap it makes. And I have no experience with peanut oil in soap, so I can't suggest it.

HP = use it earlier than CP and you will retain more of the essential oil (theoretically)
Cp = My personal opinion here: more attractive and better behaving soap all around once cured. You loose some essential oil from the curing but with the amnt that flashes off from putting it in the very warm to hot HP you will probably have the same or more in the CP.

As far as herbs or anything else goes, you would need to make an extract. And topical extracts need to be STRONG. Otherwise they just look nice on a label and do nothing for you (aka, beer soap and hop benefits)

 

[dagmar88]

I prefer CP myself; but you could add the neem after you've cooked the HP I suppose.

I'd go for something that's both mild and cleansing, like 25% coconut or better, palm kernal oil, 7% castor, 5% neem and 63% olive oil...

This week I'll be making some soap for my face (acne prone ever since 'm a adult :roll with a combo of tea tree, geranium and lavender, kaolin clay and tomato paste.
Don't ask me how the last ingredient works cause I truly have no idea I've read about using it in anti acne soap when I just started out and it makes a big difference to my skin.

 

[Jezzy]

I have made 2 acne bars for my girlfriends friend. My teens love them.

First was a 100% CO salt bar with lavender and Tea tree with clay added.

Second was a bar that I made with red clover tea added Kaolin and used

This blend.

http://www.rainbowmeadow.com/infocenter ... p?BID=1082

 

[PrairieCraft]

I started using a salt bar last week for my adult acne and I think it's working. Of course, I will have to go through an entire month of crazy hormones to really know for sure, but everything seemed to dry up within a few days of using it for the first time.

 

[Jezzy]

PrairieCraft, what oils did you use in your salt bar? Tasha got me hooked on them... I hear you on the hormones... Uggg...

 

[PrairieCraft]

Nothing, but a small amount of FO, so it smells pretty. I do use EOs topically but after soaping with EOs a bit I've come to the conclusion that it's a big waste in soap. Using EOs straight you know you're getting the benefits, lavender applied neat to blemishes dries them up quicker. EOs in soap...just not convinced there is any benefit. There is no way for the skin to absorb the EO because it's attached to the soap and gets washed down the drain. Wasteful. I love EOs, have sold them for years, use them in my practice, in my home, etc... They are wonderful things, just not in soap. Maybe in a toner. I keep meaning to make my own toner. Does anyone make a toner?

 

[PrairieCraft]

I lied, forgot about the Sea Clay that I put in for a little color. Clays are good for acne, right?

 

[ChrissyB]

For my son's skin, he seems to respond to a clay and tea tree oil soap.
For my own, I get a bit of a hormonal breakout everynow and then, a salt bar works wonders. 100% Co, 20%SF, 70% salt.
I know this has been said before, but the oil cleansing method really did wonders in helping to balance my skin. Seriously.

 

[PrairieCraft]

Oil cleansing method???

 

[Jezzy]

Oil cleansing method???

I would like to know too.

 

[dagmar88]

http://www.theoilcleansingmethod.com/

 

[Mayren]

Just a note about Oil Cleansing Method - OCM...

I love it.

Also if you've ever loved some of the LUSH facial cleansers
they have many with no soap in them, just a bit of oils, butters,
and glycerin all tossed with ground exfoliants and put into
a chunk to sell for outrageous items.

So Tons of people using those products and raving about them
are technically using OCM without knowing it.

They apply it to their faces directly and rinse or steam off.
Same thing but instead of using the oils they have them
neatly in a solid form to begin with.

just food for thought....

 

[ChrissyB]

Thanks Dagmar for posting that link.
Check it out guys, it may take you a few goes to get the blend that is right for your skin, but it's worth it. It's really amazing how it works.

 

[PrairieCraft]

I had to try this last night because my skin is so screwed up it's actually starting to hurt. Dry and red in some places and greasy and broken out in others. So I just used grapeseed and castor, didn't have sunflower oil. Massaged for a good 5 to 10 minutes and steamed off. Wasn't as greasy right after as I thought it would be and I resisted the urge to scrub with the washcloth to get the shine off. When I woke up there was no extra greasiness, skin looked very nice and felt good. Can't believe how it cleans the pores out. I have huge blackheads on my chin and nose and they were mostly clean looking.

It recommends not using this method too often. I had to wash up after being at the barn today and used the salt bar that I've been using and my skin tightened back up. Maybe I should switch back to the castille. They didn't recommend what to do on the days you don't use the OCM. Would it really hurt to do it again tonight?? How have I never heard about this before?! I want to find a nice little dropper bottle to put a blend in. Does anyone add other things? No preservative is necessary, right? Since there's no water. Should I still make it up in batches small enough to use up in a couple weeks?

I do apologize, for the hijacking of this thread.

 

[Mayren]

I use a Bastile bar on off days.
part OO with a little castor and CO

Pure Castile would be gentle

takes a little trial an error to get the right combo of OCM and off days.

I also exfoliate with a soft scrubby of somekind once per week
but to each their own there.

 

[krissy]

I had to try this last night because my skin is so screwed up it's actually starting to hurt. Dry and red in some places and greasy and broken out in others. So I just used grapeseed and castor, didn't have sunflower oil. Massaged for a good 5 to 10 minutes and steamed off. Wasn't as greasy right after as I thought it would be and I resisted the urge to scrub with the washcloth to get the shine off. When I woke up there was no extra greasiness, skin looked very nice and felt good. Can't believe how it cleans the pores out. I have huge blackheads on my chin and nose and they were mostly clean looking.

It recommends not using this method too often. I had to wash up after being at the barn today and used the salt bar that I've been using and my skin tightened back up. Maybe I should switch back to the castille. They didn't recommend what to do on the days you don't use the OCM. Would it really hurt to do it again tonight?? How have I never heard about this before?! I want to find a nice little dropper bottle to put a blend in. Does anyone add other things? No preservative is necessary, right? Since there's no water. Should I still make it up in batches small enough to use up in a couple weeks?

I do apologize, for the hijacking of this thread.

if you use you salt bar and your skin feels dry, just use a couple of drops of your OCM oils on your face. it helps a bunch.

i ended up infusing a bunch of green tea & chamomile flowers in some grape seed and a small amount of OO for my OCM. i use it every other day and it works wonders, then once a week i use Amanda's scrub and follow with a rose water toner. almost never have break outs any more and when i do, they clear up much faster.

 

[judymoody]

I made the acne soap recipe on the soap queen site (linked to Brambleberry) and used green tea instead of water and it came out great. It is clearing up my pre-teen daughter's blemishes and I have been using it too. My skin feels very soft. It feels astringent but not drying.

 

[missybee]

Okay,while I don't have much experience with making bar soap,I can safely say I have tons of experience with acne.

As you probably know,if the ph of a bar of soap is too high...well,it won't be a bar anymore. Acne has a large bacterial component involved.To inhibit bacteria,the skin is best suited to more acidic products.Get where I'm going with this?

You can shove as much tea tree oil in it as you want,but making a bar of soap for a face full of acne is still going to alter the person's "acid mantle".

Now,I have heard of people using bar soap to successfully treat their acne,but that percentage is much lower. From what I've seen,people with very mild acne are the only ones that use it and see benefits from it.For someone with deep,cystic acne it will most likely not be a good choice.

Some ingredients in bar soaps such as coconut oil,cocoa butter,and palm oils have a higher comedogenicity.A scale determining this can be found here:http://www.zerozits.com/Articles/acne_detective/article6.htm
People without acne can usually use these ingredients just fine,but acne is a whole other story.

More information on acne can be found on acne.org

So all in all,bar soap isn't necessarily bad for everyone's acne.It might be tolerable to the typical,mild teenage breakouts. However, if you're selling an acne soap,someone with severe and highly sensitive acne may be tempted into trying it.Why not make a liquid soap that would suitable to all?

 

[dagmar88]

Okay,while I don't have much experience with making bar soap,I can safely say I have tons of experience with acne.

Same here; and not just personally. I give out a lot of soap to a number of people with different skin problems, such as acne, just to see what the effect is.

As you probably know,if the ph of a bar of soap is too high...well,it won't be a bar anymore. Acne has a large bacterial component involved.To inhibit bacteria,the skin is best suited to more acidic products.Get where I'm going with this?

I understand; yet the best way to cleanse the slightly acidic skin it to use an alkaline product (soap!). The acid mantle immediately starts to restore itself. After just 20 minutes it has restored to 33% of it's normal strength and after just an hour or to it has recovered entirely.

You can shove as much tea tree oil in it as you want,but making a bar of soap for a face full of acne is still going to alter the person's "acid mantle".

Tea tree is not used to lower the PH of bar soap; realisticly that is not even possible with any other ingredient and a lower PH really has no use.
Tea tree is often used for, amongst others, it's anti bacterial and anti flammatory properties.

Though it is debatable if it does anything in a wash off product like soap, everyone is entilted to their own opinions.
As I said, homemade soap will leave your skin free of dirt and bacteria, and the acid mantle will restore itself without any problems.

Now,I have heard of people using bar soap to successfully treat their acne,but that percentage is much lower. From what I've seen,people with very mild acne are the only ones that use it and see benefits from it.For someone with deep,cystic acne it will most likely not be a good choice.

I have handed out my soap to people with serious acne; one of my 'guineapigs' has a really bad case of cystic acne on his back and the soap I gave him made a lot of difference.
When my former neighbour was hospitalised I brought him a couple of soaps and without telling me he started using them on his face.
He has some serious flare ups a couple of times a month, where his face is really painful.
Weeks later he came over to ask for more soap; he stopt the use of commercial anti-acne products completely and didn't want to use anything but handmade soap anymore 8)


When I look at my own face i've gone from really bad and painful hormone and allergy related breakouts to calmer skin with just some superficial acne.
And even that has become much better since starting the OCM combined with my sooap a couple of weeks ago.

Some ingredients in bar soaps such as coconut oil,cocoa butter,and palm oils have a higher comedogenicity.A scale determining this can be found here:http://www.zerozits.com/Articles/acne_detective/article6.htm
People without acne can usually use these ingredients just fine,but acne is a whole other story.

This article does not mention the effect of saponified coconut oil and palm oil.
Personally, I have no problem at all using coconut oil straight on my body. It's IMO to heavy to be used on the face.

More information on acne can be found on acne.org
http://www.zerozits.com/Articles/acne_d ... ticle6.htm

Tried their cleansing routine before I started using my soap on my face.
Benzoyl Peroxide...
I have very sensitive skin and this product does help preventing acne and blackheads slightly, but it also gives me dry, red, flakey skin... It's just much too agressive for my skin.
Also, it bleached my eyebrows and made a bleach stain in my favorite pair of jeans :roll: Yikes!

So all in all,bar soap isn't necessarily bad for everyone's acne.It might be tolerable to the typical,mild teenage breakouts. However, if you're selling an acne soap,someone with severe and highly sensitive acne may be tempted into trying it.Why not make a liquid soap that would suitable to all?

All of my test-soaps are used by adults only.
I'd strongly advise never to sell any homemade soap with anti-acne claims; IMO that crosses the line between cosmetic and drug:

How does the law define a drug?

The FD&C Act defines drugs, in part, by their intended use, as "articles intended for use in the diagnosis, cure, mitigation, treatment, or prevention of disease" and "articles (other than food) intended to affect the structure or any function of the body of man or other animals" [FD&C Act, sec. 201(g)(1)].

So even though I would never put claims like anti-acne on my soap; I do feel confident numerous people with acne or sensitive skin would benefit from using handmade soap, preferably without colorants and fragrance oils.

No product is suitable to all; people will just have to find out what works best for them.