Face soap ingredients for all skin types

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YDB

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Hello,

I’m making a tea tree and charcoal face/ body soap and am trying to find out what ingredients to avoid for the face. Also, how do I determine if my other soaps are safe for use on face? I only use essential oils and natural ingredients.
 
There’s no sure fire recipe for facial skin. You’ll have to test recipes to find what works best. I would avoid anything with high coconut oil. I’ve made a similar recipe that can be found on the forum called Gennys shampoo bar. Don’t use it for shampoo though. I’m on my iPad so can’t link to it. Welcome to the forum. Be sure to go to the introduction forum and tell us about yourself and experience with soapmaking.

Here's the post.
https://www.soapmakingforum.com/threads/shampoo-bar-thanks-lindy.30946/
 
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The ingredients you discussed are fully safe for your skin, unless you add fragrance for making it more pleasant. A little amount is safe, while a huge amount can mess with the skin. Adding some more peppermint oil can make your soap pleasing.
 
Peppermint in a facial soap? In my experience, the mints and menthol are additives that can be irritating, especially for the delicate skin of the face and nether regions. Some people will be fine with these additives, and some aren't.

As Shari (shunt) said, there are no surefire rules about what works and what doesn't. A person just has to try them and see what works best. Any of the soaps I make (sans peppermint) are fine on my face, but I don't have especially sensitive or troubled skin.
 
Face soap is going to vary hugely from person to person. The only 100% universal I can think of is harsh exfoliants - pumice mainly. Unless you are are the Thing from the Fantastic 4, nobody needs to exfoliate their face with pumice. I read about a lady who washed her face with Lava soap regularly for years and years...turned out the pumice was giving her face tiny micro-cuts that eventually became scar tissue as she aged.
 
I have customers with aging skin that like my 58% shea butter soap with 10% CO, while others like my Brine Charcoal soap that is more cleansing. Others just like my regular soaps which have a cleansing value of 12-15. It is finding what you like.
 
It is finding what you like.
Agreed. I had cystic acne for years, and only found relief when I switched to handmade soaps... but my face is fussy. It doesn't like vegan soaps, and because it's dry it doesn't like high cleansing soaps such as brine or salt bars (or anything with a high amount of CO), but it also doesn't like castile soaps which don't seem to clean enough. My husband's oily skin loves salt bars, he doesn't care for brine bars at all, and he'll use any soaps in the shower without problems (but salt bars are his favorite). My pre-teen daughter can only use the castile soaps - as do many of my customers. My oldest son loves pine tar soaps for his face. (The other two boys don't wash their face at all, just splash it with some water once a day. They seem to be blessed with good skin.) So just in my house of 6... there's a pretty broad range of what works and what doesn't.

I don't really market any of bars as "facial bars" although I do tend to recommend my charcoal castile as one when people specifically ask, but I do try to follow up with a lot of questions to make sure it's the right fit for them. Not that I'm a skin specialist at all, I've just been fortunate that customers have told me what works, what didn't work, so that I can predict well enough which soap is right for someone. A few times I have even told people... I don't have a soap that will help you because you're looking for a cure. Soap cleans.
 
I'm finding my I like one of the bars I made last year. I can't remember where the recipe for it is an it has Persephone's Kiss FO in it and activated charcoal and it's surprisingly not as harsh as I would have thought it would be on my face.

Found the recipe. I just don't have the shortening I used anymore. I would need to order it from Walmart. :(
 
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Thanks for all the responses. When I’m ready to sell I will just have a large variety for clients to choose from, based on their skin type instead of targeting one soap for all.
 

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