Almost everyone picks a bar of soap by smell. That isn't a silly method. Smell is more or less the only thing a shelf gives you to go on, and you will actually use a bar you like the smell of. But it belongs at the end of the decision, not the beginning, and doing it first is how people end up with a beautiful bar that leaves their face feeling like paper.
Your skin type is how your skin behaves an hour after washing, with nothing put on afterwards. Not how it looks at six in the evening. Not what a magazine quiz decided about you when you were nineteen. And it moves — with the season, with age, with where you live. A Florida August and a Florida January are not the same climate for anybody's face.
So the order is: type, then the thing you are actually unhappy about, then scent. Here is how to do each one.
How do you know what your skin type is?
Wash your face with a plain cleanser, pat it dry, put nothing on it and wait an hour. Tight, or flaking at the sides of the nose: dry. Shine on the forehead and nose only: combination. Shine everywhere, cheeks included: oily. Stinging or pink from ordinary products: reactive, which sits on top of the other three rather than replacing one.
Do it on an ordinary day. Skin that has just spent six hours in aeroplane air will tell you it is dry when it isn't, and skin tested the morning after a very hot bath will tell you the same thing for the same wrong reason.
Which bar suits oily skin?
A firmer, more alkaline bar with real exfoliation in it. Skin that runs shiny by lunchtime usually tolerates a higher pH well and prefers being left properly clean rather than coated. That is the Balancing Loofah Soap in my catalogue, and it is the bar I would hand anyone whose main complaint is shine.
The trap with oily skin is washing more, harder and hotter in the hope of getting ahead of it. Twice a day is the ceiling. Past that you are mostly making the skin uncomfortable, and uncomfortable skin is not less shiny, it is just uncomfortable as well as shiny.
Which bar suits dry skin?
A bar with plenty of oils left in it, and a light hand with exfoliation. Dry skin's problem is almost never dirt — it is that washing takes away more than it needed to. The Rose & Calendula Loofah Soap is where I would send you, using the loofah face two or three times a week rather than every day.
If your skin feels tight and squeaky within minutes of rinsing, that is worth understanding on its own terms before you buy anything, and I have written it out in is alkaline soap bad for your skin.
What if your skin reacts to everything?
Shortest ingredient list you can find, one new thing at a time, and nothing heavily scented until you know how you get on with something plain. The Chamomile Soap is the mildest bar I make and the one I would start a reactive face on: no loofah in it, no exfoliation to argue with.
Reactive is not a fourth type so much as a setting the other three can be in. You can have oily reactive skin. Plenty of people do, and they get sold astringents for the first half and gentleness for the second half and end up with a bathroom shelf at war with itself.
What if the thing you don't like is tone, not oil or dryness?
Then you are choosing for a look rather than a skin type, and you still have to get the type right first. The Turmeric Tone-Evening Loofah Soap is for anyone after a brighter, more even-looking complexion. If your skin is also dry, pick it knowing you will want something richer after it.
Two practical notes on that one, because they come up more than anything else about it. It is slow, in the sense that a few washes will not show you much. And turmeric is a dye: use a dark towel, and use a broad-spectrum SPF 30 or higher during the day.
Which bar is which?
| Bar | Skin it's for | Loofah in it? | What to know |
|---|---|---|---|
| Rose & Calendula | Dry, normal, most people most of the time | Yes | The default. Use the loofah side two or three times a week, not daily |
| Balancing | Oily and combination, skin that shines by midday | Yes | Wrong bar for tight, flaky skin. It will make that feel worse, not better |
| Turmeric Tone-Evening | Anyone whose complaint is uneven-looking tone | Yes | Dark towel. SPF 30 in the daytime. Give it weeks |
| Chamomile | Reactive skin, faces that argue with everything | No | The one to start with if you have no idea. Short ingredient list, no loofah |
| Cleopatra | Your face, as step one of the Cleopatra ritual | Comes with its own loofah slice | Sweet almond oil and sodium hyaluronate in the bar; made to go before the Cleopatra creams |
| Chamomile & Coconut | The same kind of skin as the Chamomile bar | No | Its own round bar, with chamomile and coconut; it's the soap in the Soothing set |
| Foot Care | Feet and heels | Yes | Loofah and rose petal powder; the urea cream goes on after |
Does the scent matter at all, then?
Yes, last. Scent is the reason a bar gets used instead of sitting in a drawer, and a $21.99 bar you never reach for is worse value than a $3 one you do. But it tells you nothing about whether the bar suits your skin, and it is the single thing most likely to make you choose wrong.
How do you patch test a new bar of soap?
Lather a little on the inside of your forearm, leave it thirty seconds, rinse it off, and then leave that patch alone for twenty-four hours. If nothing happens, wash one small area of your face with it and wait another day before using it everywhere. Two days of patience, no cost.
Worth doing with anything botanical, and worth doing even when you have used handmade soap for years, because the plants change. Chamomile and calendula are both in the daisy family — if ragweed or chrysanthemums are a problem for you, that is the family they belong to. Turmeric can leave pale skin faintly yellow for an hour, which is not a reaction, it is a dye doing what dyes do.
And do the test on skin that is behaving normally. Testing on a patch that is already sore tells you nothing about the soap.
Which bar is the wrong one for you?
If your skin is dry and tight, the Balancing bar is wrong for you, and its loofah face will not help. If fragrance is what sets you off, start with chamomile and add nothing. And if you are buying soap to fix something soap does not fix, none of them is your answer.
I make seven, and each one has a job, which is why I can say any of that. A brand with a hundred references has to tell you all hundred are worth having. I would rather write this paragraph than take the order.
One question I have left out of this page on purpose, because it deserves its own: whether a bar made for your body belongs on your face at all. That is in can you use a body soap on your face.
What if you get it wrong?
You will have spent $21.99 and learned your own skin, which is not the worst trade in the world, and the bar still works perfectly well below the neck. Nothing about choosing soap is irreversible. That is worth remembering when you have been staring at seven bars for ten minutes.
Two more things decide how a bar behaves that have nothing to do with the bar, and both have their own page: the water coming out of your tap, in does hard water change how your soap and your skin feel, and the one bit of you that plays by different rules entirely, in why heels get rough and crack.
If you want to browse by the thing that brought you here rather than by ingredient, the collections are sorted that way: for oily skin, for dry skin and gentle everyday. And if you want to know what the plants in these bars are actually doing before you commit to any of it, that is what plants actually do in a bar of soap.
What's actually in each bar?
They all weigh 120 g (4.23 oz), except the rectangular Chamomile Soap, which is the big one at 160 g (5.64 oz). Here's what I put in each, straight from the ingredient lists, so you can compare before you pick:
- Rose & Calendula Loofah Soap: a glycerin soap base, coconut and sweet almond oils, rose petals, calendula petals and natural loofah set into the bar.
- Balancing Loofah Soap: coconut oil, loofah powder, niacinamide, zinc oxide and salicylic acid, with panthenol and aloe.
- Turmeric Tone-Evening Loofah Soap: turmeric root extract with niacinamide, alpha-arbutin and kojic acid. It's the one that lists a natural fragrance on the label.
- Chamomile Soap and Chamomile & Coconut Soothing Soap: two different bars, both with chamomile. The rectangular one is sold on its own; the round one, with coconut, is the soap in the Soothing set.
- Cleopatra Loofah Soap: sweet almond and coconut oils, hydrolyzed collagen, sodium hyaluronate and wildflower extract. You can see the pink and pearly beads through the bar.
- Intensive Foot Care Loofah Soap: loofah powder and Damask rose petal powder, made for feet.
Which bars are not for sensitive skin?
Every bar has its job, and part of that is knowing who it isn't for. Two of them are not for hypersensitive skin, the kind that stings or turns red with almost anything:
- The Balancing Loofah Soap, made to lift excess oil. Salicylic acid and loofah are good on oily skin and too much for hypersensitive skin.
- The Cleopatra Loofah Soap, made for dry or dehydrated skin. It isn't for hypersensitive, irritated or broken skin, or skin with active breakouts.
I'd also be careful with the Turmeric bar on very reactive skin, because it has loofah powder and a natural fragrance. For skin that reacts easily, start with the Chamomile Soap or the Chamomile & Coconut Soothing Soap, and even then, test it on a small spot first.
Cosmetic products. Not intended to diagnose, treat, cure or prevent any disease.