Is it bad to wash your face with bar soap? An honest answer

Ask whether you can wash your face with bar soap and you will get two confident answers. One side says never: soap is too harsh for facial skin. The other says of course: people have done it for thousands of years. Both contain some truth, and neither is much use when you are standing at the basin.

The useful answer is that it depends on which bar and whose face. This article explains what actually matters, so you can decide for yourself.

Why facial skin is treated differently

The skin on your face is thinner than on most of your body, it has more oil glands, and it is exposed to sun, wind and pollution all day. It is also the skin you look at most closely, so you notice every dry patch and every shine. A cleanser that your shoulders would never complain about can leave your cheeks feeling tight.

The case against, taken seriously

The warning against soap on the face rests on one real fact. The surface of healthy skin is slightly acidic, usually somewhere around pH 5. True soap is alkaline, around pH 9 to 10. Washing with soap raises the skin's surface pH for a while, and strong soaps can remove more of the skin's natural oils than is comfortable.

For most people, the skin restores its normal acidity by itself in a short time, and nothing more comes of it. For people with very dry skin, eczema, rosacea or a generally reactive face, that temporary shift can be enough to cause tightness or irritation. For them, a non-soap cleanser formulated closer to the skin's pH is often the better choice.

The case for, taken equally seriously

The reputation of soap as harsh was earned largely by a particular kind of bar: hard, heavily perfumed, strongly cleansing, with the glycerin removed. A carefully made bar is a different object.

• It is built on mild oils. Olive oil soap is among the gentlest true soaps there is.
• It keeps its glycerin, the moisture-attracting by-product of soap making.
• It is superfatted: a small share of oil is deliberately left unreacted, so the bar cleans without taking everything with it.
• It has a short ingredient list, with no preservatives and often no added fragrance, which leaves fewer things to react to.

Many people with normal, combination or oily skin wash their faces with such bars for years with no trouble at all, and like the simplicity of it.

Which bar for which face

How to wash your face with a bar

• Start with clean hands and lukewarm water. Hot water strips oil and encourages redness.
• Lather the bar in your hands, then put the bar down. Wash with the foam, not the bar.
• Use your fingertips in light circles for about thirty seconds. No cloth is needed and no scrubbing.
• Keep clear of the eyes. Soap stings, and the skin around the eyes is the thinnest on the face.
• Rinse thoroughly, at least ten splashes. Residue left on the skin is a common cause of tightness.
• Pat dry with a clean towel and apply moisturiser while the skin is still slightly damp.

Once a day, in the evening, is enough for most faces; that is when there is a day's worth of oil, sunscreen and dust to remove. In the morning, a rinse with water is often all you need.

Two things a bar will not do

It will not remove heavy or waterproof make-up well by itself. Take make-up off first with an oil or a dedicated remover, then wash. And it does not replace sunscreen, moisturiser or any treatment you have been prescribed. A cleanser's only job is to clean without causing trouble.

Signs it suits you, and signs it does not

After a fortnight of use, ask how your face feels an hour after washing. If it is comfortable, neither tight nor greasy, and your skin looks much as it always did or a little calmer, the bar suits you.

If you notice persistent tightness, new flaking, stinging or redness, or if your skin becomes oilier than before in an attempt to compensate, stop. Try washing less often, switch to a milder bar, or change to a non-soap cleanser. There is no merit in persevering with something your skin dislikes.

A simple way to begin

Choose the mildest bar you can find: a plain olive oil soap, or a milk soap if your skin is on the dry side. Use it on your face every other evening for the first week, then every evening if all is well. Keep everything else in your routine the same, so that you can tell what the soap is doing.

For a great many people, the outcome is a pleasant surprise: one bar, a few seconds, a clean face, and a bathroom shelf with noticeably fewer bottles on it.

Why estheticians often say never

The strongest objections to bar soap on the face come from skincare professionals who see the results of harsh soaps every day: tight, flaky, reactive skin. Their concern is real but specific. It applies to strongly cleansing, perfumed, high-pH bars. It applies far less to a mild, superfatted, unscented soap, and not at all to synthetic cleansing bars, which are formulated at a skin-friendly pH. When someone says bar soap is bad for your face, it is worth asking which bar they mean.

Syndet bars: the other kind of bar

Many popular facial and body bars are not soap in the chemical sense. They are syndet bars, short for synthetic detergent, made from mild cleansing agents pressed into a solid. They are typically close to the skin's own pH and are often recommended by dermatologists for dry or sensitive faces. If true soap does not suit your face, a syndet bar may give you the convenience of a bar without the alkaline wash.

Soap or just water?

In the morning, rinsing with lukewarm water is often all a face needs, especially dry or sensitive skin. In the evening, after a day of sunscreen, oil and city dust, a gentle cleanser does a better job than water alone. A common, sensible pattern is water in the morning and a mild cleanser at night.

Every day, or not?

If your skin tolerates it, washing your face with a mild bar once a day is fine. Twice a day suits oilier skin. If you notice tightness, flaking or new breakouts within a fortnight, reduce to every other day, try a milder or unscented bar, or switch to a syndet bar or a non-soap cleanser.

A simple routine for each skin type

Notice how little the soap does in all of these. It appears once a day for most people, it is on the skin for half a minute, and it is followed by a moisturiser. That is why the choice of bar matters less than people fear: what you do afterwards, and above all wearing sunscreen in the daytime, has a far larger effect on how your skin looks and feels.

If you wear make-up or a water-resistant sunscreen, remove it first with a cleansing oil or balm, then follow with the bar. This double cleanse is gentler than scrubbing with soap alone to get everything off.

A cleanser's only job is to clean without causing trouble.