I see on some moisturisers saying that they can be used as a soap alternative to bathe or wash hands.
With soap I understand that the soap molecules bind with both fats and waters so effectively attach to the oils and pry them off with the water from the rinse.
I have not been able to find explanation of how emollients clean skin (so it’s possible it’s the exact same).
In: Biology
Sort of? It depends.
Soap takes oils off your face, both the excess oil and gunky stuff, but also can take off too much of your skin’s normal oil, leaving it dry. Dry skin gets irritated, irritated skin causes problems, including sometimes producing more oil more quickly to not be dry.
Emollients, aka moisturizers, clean by dilution essentially. Think about a thin layer of gunky oil on your face – now rub a whole bunch of oil onto that, and then wipe away the extra. The oil you add mixes with the gunk to make less-concentrated gunk, and when you wipe away the excess moisturizer, you’re wiping away most of the gunk too: it is “stuck to” the moisturizer coming off your face. Kind of like cleaning up a red wine stain with club soda – you don’t just put a bit of club soda on the stain and walk away, the point is to wash out the red wine until the wet spot has been replaced with 99% club soda.
This method, also called oil cleansing, leaves your skin’s oil barrier intact. The oil that comes off is replaced with moisturizer. So, if you don’t have big gobs of dirt on your face and your skin gets irritated easily, a soap-free cleanse would work fine. This works for other sensitive skin areas.
Hand washing has a different definition of “clean”. When you clean your face, you’re mostly trying to clear away dead skin, which is supposed to come off anyway so it comes up easily. Your hands have lots of microbes and other stuff on them, and germs like to stay where they are, thank you very much. They have ways of sticking around that just dumping oils on them doesn’t get off. So if you do an oil cleanse on your hands, they’ll still be dirty at the end of it because all the germs hung on and didn’t get diluted by oil.
Soap is more aggressive, which you want for germs. Best policy if you have sensitive hands is to wash with soap, and then apply moisturizer after to repair the moisture barrier.
Also, about soap: surfactants – soap – have the two ends that you described. They are good at carrying away fat-based stuff, and the water-based stuff goes away with water, but they only work on what they can touch. The act of rubbing your hands together does a lot of work lifting yucky stuff off that’s stuck to you and getting it stuck to the soap. Dipping your hands in soap and then dipping them in clean water does nothing – wash your hands for the full 30 seconds, and make sure you’re getting all the different parts of your hands.
Latest Answers