Moisturizing v.s cleansing cp soap

by Tonya
(DMV)

I’ve been researching CP soap for a while & made a few batches. My concern is that I am interested in making soap that is moisturizing, takes care of my dry & somewhat sensitive skin issues and isn’t too harsh. I stumbled upon 2 recipes that had cleansing factors of 17 & 22 but an INS of 164. Although the INS number is high, will these soap dry out the skin since the cleansing factors are higher? A recipe I personally made up was superfatted at 8%,has an INS of 141 & a cleansing factor of 7. Does the cleansing factor contribute to dry skin if the INS number is high?

Answer:

To be honest, I don't pay any attention to INS values. My basic recipe, if I calculate it and check the INS value, has one of 163. The cleansing is 20 and conditioning is 51. I personally do not find it drying at all but you have to remember that everyone has different needs when it comes to soap.

The higher the cleansing factor, the more the soap will strip the oils from your skin so it makes sense that this may cause drying. Adding in extra oils by way of superfatting the soap will help considerably.

From what I can tell, the higher the INS, the harder the soap which likely means the soap contains more hard oils. Hard oils tend to be the ones that contain more cleansing qualities as opposed to the softer oils which tend to contain more conditioning qualities.

Not sure if any of that will help you, sorry. Try and remember this one thing...soap's main purpose is to clean, hense the terms cleanse. Though we can formulate soap that is less cleansing and drying, it is still soap and will remove oil (dirty or otherwise) from your skin.

The best way to moisturize is to use products that are meant to add moisture and oil to the skin rather than take it away.

Cathy