Kind of a scary question for a CP soap lover

[falldowngobump]

My Mother in law is 88, diabetic and lives with us. She has dememtia and I've been her full time caregiver for the past two years. She has the most FRAGILE skin I've ever seen. She is the reason I've ventured into soapmaking--I figured the had to be something better than store bought soap for her. I make goatsmilk and oatmeal soap that my family loves--I always take about a third of the batch, and rebatch with milk and sometimes add little additional oil just for her skin. Super gentle and the best part is that her skin looks and feels less dry.

 

[margaret]

I have the same problem with CP but not HP..thought I was doing something wrong.
Love CP for the lather and the hardness but found even my conditioning soap was more drying.

 

[SudsyKat]

Fascinating! So, you're suggesting rebatching a fully cured soap with extra good stuff added to it? That makes a lot of sense because if you're not adding any more lye, the good stuff will be in full force in the new soap. I love that idea! When you add shea butter and other nice things after the fact:

1. How long do you need to let the soap cure (not for lye's sake, but for hardness and longevity sake)?

2. Do you need to add a preservative?

Thanks again - what a wonderful idea!

 

[DottieF.]

I am 53 yrs. old with dry skin and live in northern Michigan. I can use CP on my face but I do have to use a moisturizer year-round. I have to no matter what I wash my face with. But, after washing with my CP, it doesn't feel tight & dry.

I'd suggest ditching coconut oil from your recipe (if you're using any) and sub. palm kernel oil. Some people are sensitive to coconut oil but can tolerate PKO.

Also, try a bigger lye discount. I take a 9% discount.

I love oatmeal in my soap. (We heat our house with a wood stove so the air can be rather dry even with a humidifier. The oatmeal really helps with the itchies for all 3 of us.) I use 1 cup of finely ground oatmeal (or just buy oat flour) in a 12# (oils) batch.

This is my recipe for a 12# batch of oatmeal soap:

80 oz. refined grade A olive oil
64 oz. palm oil
48 oz. coconut oil
64 oz. (or less) water
1 cup finely ground oats (sift, sift, sift if your grind them yourself)
26.2 oz sodium hydroxide

If you use PKO instead of coconut oil your lye mount would be 25.5 oz.

If I scent this I use 12 oz. of Lavandin 'Grosso' or 'Abrialis'. It's my most popular soap.

HTH, Dottie.

 

[soapbuddy]

You could also sub the coconut with babasu. Babasu is less drying then coconut.

 

[turnedlight]

I never use soap on my face anyway, I suffer from very dry skin and eczema! But I have been using my soap else where and I have found it to be very gentle. The most drying effect seems to come form too much coconut.
I wash my face in water and then use rosehip oil on it, which I only discovered recently after years of only being able to use Lush products. Rosehip oil is the bees knees.

 

[carebear]

Fascinating! So, you're suggesting rebatching a fully cured soap with extra good stuff added to it? That makes a lot of sense because if you're not adding any more lye, the good stuff will be in full force in the new soap. I love that idea! When you add shea butter and other nice things after the fact:

1. How long do you need to let the soap cure (not for lye's sake, but for hardness and longevity sake)?

2. Do you need to add a preservative?

Thanks again - what a wonderful idea!

The fresher the soap you start with the better - pre-cure is best! No preservative necessary. Once you've rebatched, how long will depend on how much liquid you have in the soap. Longer is always better. I'd give it at least a couple of weeks, but srsly a couple of months is nice.

 

[paillo]

fabulous thread! can't wait to try some of these super ideas! i'd pretty much given up on facial bars, but these sound like winners!

 

[PrairieCraft]

I've been experiencing some crazy skin issues lately. Dry skin with oily patches, acne, redness and rough feeling. I've tried every kind of soap I have, tried not using soap everyday, tried the oil cleansing method, mild exfoliation, clay face mask....probably a couple other things. Out of desperation because it was getting to the point of being painful as well as ugly looking I made up a soothing face mask with stuff I had around the house. I suppose us soapers have more stuff laying around than others might and what a great thing that is. This face mask used three nights in a row has taken out all of the redness the dead skin that I could feel built up is gone and the acne is quickly healing up. I'm sure the ingredients could be played with according to what you have on hand but this is what I used.

3 tbl yogurt
1 tbl honey
.5 tsp honey powder
.5 tsp lavender powder
1 drop rose EO (love)
1 drop sandalwood EO

I even went to the craft store for a painters fan brush so it would feel like a real facial. After cleaning up with a cool cloth I used my oil cleansing method blend of castor oil and grapeseed oil with rose, lavender and lemon eo. Get your moisturizing oil on your face while your skin is still wet before it has a chance to get dry and tight.

This is totally off the discussion of soap but soap and cleansers weren't helping my issue no matter how long they were cured, how high they were SF or rebatched. This mask is sooo cooling and soothing. I'm in love with it. I'm going to play around with different formulas using cucumber and watermelon. I meant this to only be enough for 1 use but it made more than I thought and I didn't want to waste it so I stored it in the fridge and used it within 3 days. I have preservative but don't know enough about using it yet. What do you guys think? Is three days ok with no preservative or should I attempt using some? I figure the yogurt is only going to be good for so long anyway at which point it would seperate and be icky.

 

[soapbuddy]

It should be ok for three days in the fridge, but no longer than that.

 

[alabama49]

Paillo--how do you make your vitamin c moisurizer? I would like to try that!!

 

[kelleyaynn]

Prairiecraft - do you think the EO's are necessary? I'd love to try it on my son, whose face is red from the acne treatments. However, he is severely autistic, and would probably try to eat the mask off his face. Everything but the EO's is edible and non-toxic, so I could try that much.

 

[reallyrita]

Just leave the EO's out and you should be ok with this. By the way, Jojoba oil (actually a wax) is very soothing for a red, irritated skin.

 

[Finchen]

I am 31 and I still have oily skin and problems with acne. Nothing seems to help lately.

I have made a batch of salt bars a few days ago since I read some members of this forum here had great success with salt bars and acne.

Now I need to give the soap at least 4 weeks to cure, but I am so impatient... :roll:

 

[kelleyaynn]

Now I need to give the soap at least 4 weeks to cure, but I am so impatient... :roll:

I've read on the forum that salt bars should cure for several months (3 or 4) at least. I made some salt bars for my son, and am waiting until July or August to try them on his skin. Now, for the life of me I can't remember why the longer cure is good. Something about using 90 - 100% coconut oil, I think? It gets milder?

 

[soapbuddy]

Any CP soap will be better and milder after a good cure. 6 to 8 weeks is a good range.

 

[PrairieCraft]

Prairiecraft - do you think the EO's are necessary? I'd love to try it on my son, whose face is red from the acne treatments. However, he is severely autistic, and would probably try to eat the mask off his face. Everything but the EO's is edible and non-toxic, so I could try that much.

I really think the honey is the special ingrediant here. Before I put the mask on I dab straight honey onto the worst blemishes and then put the mask over that and leave on until dry. The yogurt makes it very cooling. I should try it without the EOs to compare.

 

[Bama]

The reason I started making CP soap was because I had a friend who sent me some Chamomille soap she made and after years of cleaning my face with 5 or 6 steps to clean expensive Make up remover and constantlly having clogged pores, i noticed a marked improvment in my face. I got her recipe which has Shea butter, powdered buttermilk and Crushed Chamomille flowers that have been cooked in the olive oil first added at trace. My friends and family noticed the difference. Since I had Shea butter on hand I started making a body butter that I use as a moisturizer after washing as Shea butter does not clog pores and absorbs in skin easily. I can't go back to anything else and all my DIL's now think I have to keep them in face soap. My soaps main oil is Olive, with a some CO, PO, and a little caster.

 

[delicious]

I find that all soaps in general dry out my hands. Even organic CP hand made soap I had bought when trying to figure out a solution for my dermatitis-ridden-hands.
Then again: shea butter ruins my hands, so even what loads of people consider the most soothing thing really wrecks everything for me.

 

[busymakinsoap!]

Ive made one facial soap which I formulated with a very low cleanse, high amounts of shea and avocado oil and a high superfat (15%). I had it in my head that 'soap' would be drying and would need all these extras in order to be ok for my face.

At first I thought the soap was great - not drying at all. But now my skin is the worst it has been with break outs big time, I went to the chemist today and brought my first ever acne cream. So disapointing. Needless to say I have gone back to a regular supermarket face wash.

I've always been told 'never use soap on your face', so i think ive had this stuck in my head believing it would be ultra drying.
But its just struck me - I was a clinique junkie for years, and their facial 'soap' is the best i have ever used.

i love my regular soaps and no longer moisturise after a shower (and Im a twice a day showerer) i bet my OMH soap with super fat of 7% would be great on my face - i just have to get my head around the fact that its OK to use.