When you finally find a beauty product perfectly addresses your skin concerns, it could almost feel like you’ve struck gold. But some beauty products, although budget-friendly, don’t necessarily mean they're as skin-friendly as they claim to be. In fact, some products can do more harm than good because some chemicals used in making them can be harsh on your skin—especially if you have sensitive skin and even in just trace amounts.
Consider this: As the body’s biggest organ, your skin protects you and your internal organs from harsh environmental elements. To guard against harmful bacteria and fungi, healthy skin typically maintains a pH range of 5.4 to 5.9. Ever since you were younger, you were taught to use soap as part of daily hygiene—but unknown to most, most soaps on the market have higher pH levels of 9 to 10, which can drastically affect your skin’s health. Below, skin issues that can arise from using the wrong soap.
You want the day’s dirt and grime off your body, so you reach for regular soap, which contains chemicals called surfactants. These work by attracting the oil and grime to it so you easily rinse it off with water. But a certain type of surfactant used in most commercial soaps can be too helpful that they end up stripping natural moisture produced by sebaceous (oil-producing) glands from the skin, causing your skin to become drier than usual.
Here’s the rub (no pun intended): The soap you scrubbed on your skin that made you squeaky clean and excessively dry triggers the skin into producing more oil to compensate for the lack of moisture on the skin’s surface. So you address oily skin concerns with more soap to rid yourself of excess oil, and then it becomes a never-ending loop straight out of a skincare nightmare.
Now that the pores on your skin are surrounded by a mix of sebum and dead skin cells, your skin becomes a breeding ground for acne and other blemishes. Pores are clogged, bacteria is trapped inside, and voila! Zits galore.
Using the wrong soap can also mess up your skin’s pH levels to the extreme and lead to skin flareups. Some harsh ingredients in soap can irritate skin and aggravate existing conditions—or worse, start them. The itch from a patch of dry skin on your torso or your back could become unbearable to the point that your co-workers might consider giving you a wooden scratcher to offer their sympathy.
For soap that’s gentle and nourishing on your skin, try a mild cleansing bar like Dove White Beauty Bar or Dove Pink Beauty Bar. Made up of 1/4th moisturising cream and mild cleansers, these are considered more as beauty bars than regular bar soaps as they're gentle on the skin, leaving it smooth, soft, hydrated, and radiant. Moisturized and healthy-looking skin is a beauty plus you can get with Dove’s gentle and nourishing beauty bars.
Order Dove Beauty Bars online at Lazada, and visit the Dove Philippines Facebook page for more information on how to get soft, smooth, radiant skin.