With all of the soaps available today, how can you tell the quality soaps from the cheaply produced, the soaps that will actually nourish your skin from those that will simply get the dirt off? At Southern Natural, we continue the proud tradition of all-natural, handmade soaps because we know the benefits they can provide one’s skin firsthand. Our founders have successfully used goat’s milk soap to treat their own skin conditions, and today, we continue to refine our processes to deliver lovingly-produced soap that soothes, heals, and nourishes your skin. In today’s blog, we’re going to review the qualities you should look for when choosing a quality natural soap for your skin.
Durability & Texture
The hardness and texture of a bar of soap are two attributes that are critical to determining the value of your experience with it.
On one hand, you want a bar of soap that’s hard enough to last a while and possess a rough enough of a texture to clear away the dead skin cells from your face, hands, and body. On the other hand, any bar of soap that doesn’t possess at least a little softness or smoothness to its texture is probably not going to be the most pleasant to wash with.
The best soaps thread the needle with regard to these two qualities — a good natural soap is hard and durable enough to last for several washes, but smooth enough to make the process of washing and exfoliating your skin gentle and pleasant.
Cleansing
Washing with soap feels fairly simple, right, you just wash the dirt away? It’s a little more involved than that. Your skin contains natural oils, so when your hands are dirty, the soap you use is really targeting dirty oil.
We mention this because some soaps can be too good at cleaning — that is, they latch on to your skin’s oils in addition to the dirt, washing away your skin’s natural moisturizers. Soaps that contain too much lauric acid, a component in palm and coconut oil, are often too good at cleaning, which can leave your skin dry.
Some of Southern Natural’s soaps contain palm oil, but the potential dehydration effects it could have on your skin are neutralized by all the natural fats and oils in the goat milk that is the primary ingredient in our soap.
Another way you can evaluate soap’s cleansing abilities is to examine its lather. Soaps that are made with higher amounts of lauric acid — in other words, the oils that can clean away your skin’s natural oils along with the dirt — produce a bubbly, foam-like lather. Soaps that contain low amounts of these oils, or none at all, produce a creamy lather with minimal bubbles or foam. Southern Natural soaps produce a rich, creamy lather.
Moisturizing & Hydrating Properties
In addition to cleaning your skin, a quality natural soap should also hydrate and moisturize your skin. A soap’s moisturizing and hydrating qualities depend on the ingredients used — primarily, you’re looking for high amounts of glycerin, or a high-quality substitute.
At Southern Natural, we make soaps with goat’s milk because of the abundance of fatty acids, nourishing proteins, and oils contained in it. In our experience, we’ve found that goat’s milk provides the skin a level of moisturization and hydration that is equal or superior to glycerin-based soaps.
Natural soaps, as a whole, are superior to cheaply-produced supermarket soaps primarily because of glycerin (or animal milk) — these ingredients provide natural moisturization and hydration to your skin, but they’re often removed from mass-produced soaps during production so that the manufacturers can use them for skin moisturizer products. In essence, they’re splitting the cleaning and moisturizing aspects of natural soap into two products so that they can charge consumers twice! It’s a dirty trick you won’t find with natural soaps.
Vitamins & Minerals
As producers of goat’s milk soap, we’ll admit we’re a little biased here, but we believe a quality natural soap should nourish your skin, too. Goat’s milk is incredibly nutritious for goats and humans alike, and none of the benefits are lost when it’s used to make soap. Our goat’s milk soap is rich in Vitamin A, selenium, and a host of other nutrients that heal and protect your skin.
Clean, Refreshing Scent
A good bar of natural soap should smell as good as it feels. At Southern Natural, we offer a bounty of delightfully-scented soaps, from essential oil-based scents, such as Rosemary Mint and Patchouli, to fragrant scents, such as Coconut and Ginger & Amber. We carefully integrate essential oils and fragrance oils into our recipes to create soaps that leave you clean with a subtle, irresistible scent, but are not so laden with oils as to irritate your skin in the process.
For those with sensitive skin or delicate skin conditions, we also offer unscented soaps!
Handmade Production Process
Finally, a quality natural soap should be made by hand. Sure, it may cost a little more to make than supermarket soap, but the health and feel of your skin is important. The natural soap-making process is the best way to reap the full benefits that the nutrients in glycerin and goat’s milk offer, and the result is a bar of soap that is longer-lasting and much higher quality than anything you’ll find in a supermarket.
So instead of washing with cheaply produced soap that, more often than not, dehydrates and damages your skin in the process of cleaning them, why not nourish your skin with lovingly-produced soap handmade by people that prioritize quality over profit? Browse the Southern Naturals store today to find your favorite bar of skin-rejuvenating goat’s milk soap!