I’ve Been Washing My Face with Soap and I’m Pleasantly Surprised

Never in a million years would I think I’d use soap to wash my face. It’s not because I’ve always been super responsible with my skin or that I always knew that soap is drying. It’s because I used to be very irresponsible with my skin and didn’t even know about the importance of daily facial cleansing!

But once I learned about face washes, I stuck with them religiously. Honestly, I used to think soaps were “for women in their 70s who are resistant to change”. Well, I stand corrected! I’ve been using bar soap to wash my face and I’m loving the results!

It all started with my stress pimples. And from my experience, the only way to get rid of those is to get rid of stress, which was impossible for me at the time. And you know why I think stress pimples are so stubborn, other than the fact that they linger until you eliminate the cause of stress?

Stressed people touch their faces a lot. It’s kind of a subconscious self-soothing mechanism. And when you touch your face, you tend to pick at acne and you make acne worse. That’s why I think stress pimples are stubborn and take forever to heal!

In a desperate attempt to look and feel better because my face looked bad and even makeup didn’t help, I made things much worse. I dermaplaned my face. It’s when you shave off the tiny hairs on your face.

It makes your skincare absorb better, including anti-acne products, and makes your makeup look better. On the flip side, your skin becomes very exposed and vulnerable to dirt and grime, resulting in clogged pores and more acne.

That’s exactly what happened to me. I was left with breakouts all over my face, redness, and sensitivity; my skin was pretty much out of control, and it would not work with anything I put on it, whether it was a hydrating drugstore cleanser for dry skin or a redness-reducing moisturizer.

Things were pretty much beyond salvageable. Even the topical rosacea cream my dermatologist gave me didn’t work! I was annoyed and I just stopped and discontinued using my regular products.

I was in my bathroom one evening and I was hesitant to wash my face again because I was fearing the aftermath: red skin all over! Because I tried everything and used every possible product to calm irritation and reduce acne, I had nothing left.

Nothing new to try. Except for the bar soap right next to the sink that caught my eye at the moment! So I reached for it. It’s a pretty basic, old-school soap. I went ahead and wet my face and rubbed the soap against my cheeks.

I then foamed it up and washed my whole face. I know that soaps are drying for the skin and I associate using soap with flaky, lackluster skin. At that point, I didn’t care. During rinsing, I experienced that squeaky clean skin where your fingers can’t seem to glide on your skin.

Much to my surprise, the end result was not bad! I pat my face dry and I did not see any redness which was a common occurrence at the time even with the most skin-friendly cleansers I had! In fact, it felt like it calmed my skin!

So I kept doing it for over two weeks every single day. No makeup, just wash my face with soap, apply the topical antibiotic, leave it on, and wash with soap in the morning again. This is literally what saved my skin!

So I know we’re told that soap can be bad for your skin and when you use it for a long time, it can do more harm than good. But I actually never got to the point where I saw any harm or experienced any of the supposed downsides! No skin flakes, irritation, or tight feeling whatsoever!

No excess oil production due to soap’s stripping nature which might force the skin to produce more oil -nothing like that! If anything, it felt like soap treated my skin and was the reset button my troubled skin needed!

I’ve realized that most of the active ingredients used to treat acne such as benzoyl peroxide, retinoids, and salicylic acid are, too, drying for the skin. What do we do? We moisturize and fix it! So maybe soaps being a bit drying for the skin isn’t always such a bad thing.

I love trying new skincare and enjoying a multi-step skincare routine but there’s no denying that sometimes, they cause a loop where your skin can’t catch a break and just rejects everything no matter how minimal, alcohol-free, fragrance-free, or oil-free the product is!

So if you hit a wall and nothing in your arsenal seems to be working for your skin, don’t be afraid to go back to basics. I mean, I don’t want to “go there” but we’re told that soap is harsh on the skin by the people who literally have their own skincare line, including a “gentle” cleanser!

Also, if soap is drying for the skin and cleansers aren’t, then why are we encouraged to use moisturizer regardless of the cleanser we use?

So is washing your face with soap bad for your skin? I say no, not in my experience! After my experiment with soap, I decided to include it as an extension of my skincare. I even bought a bar soap that looks and feels a bit fancier. And I actually think soap is one of the most effective products I’ve ever used on my sensitive, acne-prone skin!

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