Predominantly we have been using soap and water for bathing, it is only recently that body washes have been introduced India. But are these really helping us in achieving that baby soft skin they promise us in advertisements?
Soap is the simplest type of surface-active agent – surfactant – and works by making fat and oil (or you can call it, dirt) water-soluble and thus removing it on washing or wiping. Made from fatty acid salts, soaps clean by reducing the surface tension of your skin with anionic agents such as carboxylate, sulfonate and sulfate ions etc. But are these chemicals beneficial for your skin?
1. Soaps contain caustic soda
This is the biggest disadvantage of our commercial soap bars. Most of the skin soaps we use today contain Caustic Soda, which is highly toxic and harsh on our skin. Caustic soda is used to clean the old paint on metals of the car and other vehicles while repainting, now that perhaps can give you an idea of how harmful it can be to your skin.
2. Soaps contain high pH level
Soaps we use daily come with high pH level. This washes away the useful acid layer on the skin which helps skin in defense against bacteria and other microorganisms. By using skin soaps daily, we lose this useful acid shawl and may suffer from many skin diseases.
3. Soaps wash away natural oils off your skin
Soap strips off your naturally produced body oils leaving it dry and itchy and in turn making you feel the requirement of moisturizers and creams and thus the cycle of applying chemicals over chemical goes on.
Normally we take foams as a sign of dirt getting washed off. That’s the reason we overuse Soap or body/hair shampoos than the required level. Yes, that is how Advertising industry made our brains to perceive that more foams are proportional to more cleanliness. How naive we are to be misled by such ads.
However, there are few alternatives that you can try:
- BESAN :
Mix Besan (Gram) flour with malai (milk cream) and make a paste. Massage your skin with it and wash away with warm water.
Gram flour with cream helps in making your skin radiant and pimple free. Besan removes oiliness from the face. But if your skin is dry already, then add a dash of any essential oil such as Tea tree oil (good for pimples), jojoba or even coconut oil in your gram flour and cream paste and use similarly as directed.
And a great unknown fact is, even one of the beautiful actress of India, Hema Malini uses Besan flour with malai instead of soap. During one of her interviews, she said she doesn’t use the soap she endorses (she used to be the brand ambassador of Lux soaps). She even doesn’t use any other soap like Pears or Dove. Not just her, even many other actors and actresses don’t use soaps they promote.
- MULTANI MITTI:
Multani Mitti is one ancient secret for the beautiful skin of Indians. Still, many people in India use Multani Mitti just as a face pack. Now, all you need to do is, mix Multani Mitti with curd and make it into a paste and massage your skin with it and wash away with warm water. That’s it! This makes your skin glowing and radiant. It leaves your skin soft and cleansed.
- MILK:
Use fresh milk (not boiled) for wiping your skin. Use a cotton dab or tissue to apply a layer of milk and wash it off later with plain water. You’ve already seen enough advertisements of soaps promising of containing the three-fourth portion of milk, time to use milk on the whole!
- HONEY AND LEMON JUICE:
Use honey with 5-6 drops of lemon juice and dab with cotton on your skin. Leave for a couple of minutes and wash off. This gives shine to your skin. However, using it for the whole body can be unreasonable (or maybe the right word is, uneconomical!) so rather it can be used as just a face pack.
High time, you need to stop spending a fortune on unnecessary products and invest in the right ones.
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