After I published my articles about soap, I received a question/comment about soap stripping the skin of natural oils. I thought this was an important issue, so here’s my answer to that one.
Will Soap Dry Your Skin Out?
There seems to be some information floating around about the danger of soap drying out skin. The issue can be a confusing one because of all the propaganda that the skin and hair care product industries have distributed in their attempts to sell their products. Unfortunately, much of the information out about soap drying out skin is not real helpful to those who want to keep youthful skin or returned damage skin to health. A quick look at the issues involved with soap use should clear up your skin questions pretty quickly.
Our bodies produce and coat our skin with natural oils. These oils are important in the functioning of our skin cells, but it can cause a few problems for skin health, too. This fact is more important to understand today than ever before. At one time our earth was natural and pure. Today we are exposed daily to over 6,000 toxins in our food, air, water, and living environments. Today we are seeing increases of bacterias and viruses which continue to become more dangerous as they become more immune to our efforts to kill them. As these elements keep hammering our skin to gain entry to our bodies, our skin’s health becomes more and more important to, and more difficult to, maintain and optimize.
Just as oils in our cupboards become rancid, so will the oils on your skin due to exposure to harmful elements. While the oil on our skin is vital to our health, it also makes a great adhesive for environmental toxins and germs. Many toxins do not merely adhere to skin, they actually soak into the body from it and thus gain entry without being filtered through our liver and other detoxifying organs. Toxins that gain entry to the body via skin are therefore much more toxic than those we ingest through our food and water. Germs also adhere to skin oils and multiply, some finding entrance through areas in which the skin integrity is compromised and through our pores. As long as oil which has collected these elements stays on the skin, your body is in a very compromised state. Skin oil needs to be washed off frequently to get rid of the collection of these toxins.
It is also, at this point, important to understand the purpose of soap. The purpose of soap is not to moisturize. It is to clean. A good soap made without toxins will do just that. Anti-bacterial ingredients are not necessary, and actually are poisonous and can cause much havoc to your liver and other vital organs. You do not need anti-bacterial agents. Soap should merely be a tool to help wash away oils contaminated with toxins and bacteria. Choose your soap very carefully and make sure you know what every ingredient in the soap does and make sure it has no toxic chemicals. Wash your skin with a wash cloth, soap and water. Once you are done, you need to moisturize and you need to do that without fail.
Do not fail to realize that skin needs moisture to stay supple, too. Moisture and oil must not be confused. Right after washing you skin will feel and look just a little plumper from the water used to wash. That water will evaporate rapidly though, leaving skin dry and tight. By adding a layer of moisturizer right away after washing, you can avoid that dryness. If you have dry skin, you may want to use a bit of oil after washing, but it is best to let the skin breathe naturally and replace the oils from your own metabolic process. If your skin is dry, that is a signal that you need to fix what is wrong with your metabolism. If your metabolism is running smoothly your body will replace the oils you washed off fairly quickly. Eating enough of the essential oils for your body goes a long way to maintaining the correct flow of oil to coat your cells. Omega 3 oils from krill oil and raw, ground flax seeds will provide vital oils for your body to use to replace skin oils.
Another issue with washing skin is that it takes time for your skin to metabolize Vitamin D3 you get from sun exposure. If you know you can get more sun exposure daily to keep a layer of this vital vitamin/hormone on your skin, washing will not set you back on your supply. If you know you are going to be unable to replace that layer daily, you might have to choose between hearty washing and just a light wash with plain water for a day or so until you can get more sun exposure so as to get rid of as many toxins as you can without disturbing your Skin’s vitamin D resources. If you have been exposed to a lot of toxins, you might well decide to wash heartily and take a Vitamin D3 supplement that day. Make sure you study the facts about your needs for this vitamin and how to take it for maximum absorption. Skin without enough Vitamin D will not stay healthy very long – and neither will any other part of your body.
Natural skin oil is vital to good skin, but once those oils become polluted, they do nothing more than harm your body. Washing your skin with non-toxic soap is a very important part of any skin care regime. It’s not a non-toxic soap that hurts your skin, it is not continuing with a good after wash care regime that will cause any negative long-term effects that you would see from washing alone.
©2010; Sally Taylor: Sals Secrets Revealed
