More on Soap

Last time I talked about soap, I documented why I moved off of bar soap to liquid soap because bar soap is made with palm kernelate; i.e. palm kernel oil which causes my psoriasis to flare up.

Well, this time I've reversed directions...sort of. I moved off of most liquid soaps and back to bar soap, but very specific kinds of bar soaps which do not use palm kernel oil.

I had been using standard liquid soap on my hands for months and then I bought a set of bottles of liquid soap for use in the shower. I used soap from one bottle once and had an instant flare-up. So I double-checked the ingredients and found that they were basically the same as my hand soap, which I only use on my hands. In the shower, I had been using (and continue to use) Alevia Ensymatic Body Cleanse, which is liquid but has a simple list of Paleo-AIP-compatible ingredients.

It seems that as long as I used conventional liquid soap on my hands a small-enough area was exposed so as to not cause a large flare-up, but once I used it as a body wash my skin responded. It wasn't a huge flare-up but definitely noticeable.

Dang! Time to find a new soap.

So I checked the aisles at my local stores to try and find something usable. In particular, I focused on finding a beef tallow-based soap because that is what soap was made from before manufacturers switched to palm kernel oil (I presume because of the cost savings). My father even has memories of going to the local chemist to get lye (acid) for his mom to employ in soap-making.

Unfortunately, I couldn't find anything in grocery stores; I didn't go to any specialty stores so I don't know for sure. I switched to looking online, but unfortunately Amazon's search stinks when looking for certain specialty items. Amazon kept trying to promote other "natural" soaps which are not compatible with my needs instead of showing me soaps organized according to the ingredients I specifically searched for.

Regardless, I persisted. I had to go through pages of results until I finally found grass-fed beef tallow-based bar soap. I also bought some lard-based soap because it is a little less-expensive per bar.

Both of those soaps worked well for me. In fact, I found an awesome side-effect of transitioning to that soap; my hands no longer get raw and I stopped using hand lotion. (But don't go out and buy that soap just yet...)

During the winter, my hands often start to crack and bleed. When I traveled to dry places like Utah, my hands got even worse. When this happened in Washington I thought it was the air conditioning which might not be adding enough moisture back into the heated air (cold air naturally holds less moisture and the building A/C warms up air from outside, pumping it into our offices). I bought some large containers of lotion and applied it regularly to compensate. The lotion made my hands soft for about 30 minutes, but then my hands would be raw again. I requested that the A/C get serviced at work, but the dryness persisted.

I eventually realized that lotion was making the problem worse. I was able to get some relief by applying a tiny amount of Vaseline to my knuckles after washing my hands. Even then, my hands were often red and sore at the end of a workday or after a day in a dry climate.

Thankfully, when I changed to the tallow-/lard-based soap, I no longer needed to apply Vaseline. Even if I were in the area for 2 weeks my hands stayed soft and didn't get red, without using any lotion or Vaseline. Woo hoo!

I prefer the tallow-based soap to the lard-based soap, but Pineapple objected to both. She does not like the aroma left by either. I didn't notice the aroma because I used it only on my hands during the day, and in the evening I applied it to my nose so that my nose strips would adhere better. Pineapple regularly commented but I didn't know what to do about it and it seemed like a small deal since I couldn't tell. As I was headed to bed one day I finally noticed the smell; It's like wet dog. Gross!

Back to the drawing board.

I had an inkling that maybe I could either find a tallow-based soap with a compatible fragrance, or I could find something made from other oils like olive, avocado, or coconut. Searching through Amazon was another huge pain. I had to filter past the promoted, irrelevant results, and I had to carefully read the ingredients of each and every option (most had additives like sunflower seed oil), but eventually I found some more soap. At the time, I only found 2 options, so I ordered them both; "Man Soap" and "Tee Tree" soap.

Before applying either, I got Pineapple to test the smell of both and she picked the "Man Soap". So I gave it a shot.

Man Soap works great! I got all the benefits of the tallow-/lard-based soaps, but with a much better smell. In fact, my hands seem to be just a little bit better than they were with the prior soaps.

The Man and Tea Tree soaps come with a warning that they need to be kept high and dry, so I bought some soap dishes and some soap lifts. I've tried to find less-expensive soap lifts, but the less-expensive ones I got have thinner threads of plastic and so they don't work as well as what I originally bough. I've seen soap lifts in some local stores at better prices, however. You might also consider getting a vinyl pool mat and cut it up into soap-dish sized pieces, but you probably need to get a few dozen soap lifts out of it to make that worthwhile.

The soap also comes with a warning that it only takes 2 swipes to get enough soap to be effective. I get my hands wet, swipe the soap in my hands twice (or flip it in one hand 3 times), and then I can rub my hands together to get a great lather.

I also found that kids love the Man Soap. They enjoy the texture of it, and are accustomed to the behavior of more-conventional soaps, so they tend to rub the soap many times before putting it down. It took some discussions about helping the soap to last and several gentle reminders to get them to swipe it only twice.

Pineapple and I were visiting family in Utah and I placed my soap in one bathroom and next to the kitchen sink (because I do a lot of cooking). One of our nephews--who was also visiting--has eczema. By the end of 2 weeks, his hands were pretty raw because he used conventional hand soap in a different bathroom and my coconut soap occasionally in the kitchen. We noticed that his hands were having trouble so we told him to only use the coconut and tallow soaps (I had plenty of leftovers). Within a week his hands were smooth again.

With these new soaps my hands feel much better, but I will stay on the lookout in case something needs to change (for instance, the Tea Tree soap seems to cause a mild psoriasis flare-up). The manufacturers have their own website which is easier to navigate than Amazon, even though it is just a simple storefront for purchasing through Amazon. There are some soaps on that site I cannot use because of their ingredients. However, I have purchased a box of each kind which I can use--Activated Charcoal and Rose Clay, and French Lavender--and I am looking forward to trying each out.