Is It Okay To Wash Your Face With Bar Soap?
While it's important to wash your face every day, using bar soap to cleanse your face might not be the best option. That's because bar soap can be harsh and abrasive on your skin. Most conventional bar soaps contain components that damage your skin by disrupting its pH value (via Healthline). Healthy and balanced skin has a pH value of about 5.5, while bar soap can have a pH level twice as high. As a result, bar soap can strip away your skin's natural oils.
"When the skin's pH is too high, your body produces excess sebum to fight back and restore its natural pH levels. However, the soap residue ensures the disruptive pH is maintained," David Pollack, an independent beauty chemist, told Healthline. "The end result is that skin can become too oily. If that isn't bad enough, soap residue emulsifies or binds to the skin's lipid matrix," he states.
Better alternatives to bar soap
Although conventional bar soaps may be too harsh on skin, there are plenty of other ways to wash your face without stripping away your skin's natural oils or disrupting its pH balance. Experts at POPSUGAR suggest a number of gentle cleanser alternatives that nourish and moisturize the skin instead of drying it out.
If you have well-balanced or combination skin, the Dove Beauty Bar may be your best bet, as it's not actually a bar of soap. Rather, it's considered a plant-based non-soap product that is designed to help keep your skin clean and soft. For people with dry skin, facial cleansing creams may be a better option. The Lancôme Milky Creme Cleanser in particular, is a cleansing cream that works to hydrate rough or dry skin. Conversely, people with oily or acne-prone skin may benefit from using oil cleansers. Products like the Boscia Cool Cleansing Oil can help unclog your pores and dissolve any excess oil on your face.