SOAP is Insane
Written: Oct 23 '01 (Updated Dec 11 '01)
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Product Rating:
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Pros: Very COOL silver wrapper indeed.
Cons: Almost everything else!
The Bottom Line: Consider a modern facial cleanser instead; the antiquated bar soap has too many drawbacks.
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| thatsmytake's Full Review: Clinique Facial Soap with Dish Extra Strength |
I'm writing this review mostly just help CURE anyone out there who's still using bar soap. I guess my question to those people would be WHAT IS THE MATTER WITH YOU ?!?!?!? ARE YOU INSANE?
O.K., I'll try not to be judgemental. I realize that bar soap usage is a disease, it shouldn't be taken to reflect on one's character. I'm here to HELP you. So relax and allow yourself to be carried off to a place called SANITY.
A little reality therapy first, then a fun science experiment, then on to the review. What, you're in a rush? Hey, just sit down and listen, or I'll have to get out the straight jacket.
ALL bar soaps (yes, even the clear ones) are solid matter. The ingredients needed to render soap solid are NOT WATER SOLUBLE. That means the stuff does not rinse off well. Period, end of story.
It is hard to believe that Clinique is decades behind the times in this regard, still trying to pawn off bar soap as a sensible option for washing one's face, but that seems to be the case.
Sure, bar soaps can look, smell, and perform differently from each other, but in one regard they are ALL the same... they leave a residue. Sad, but true.
It's sad, because bar soap is usually cheaper than gel or liquid cleansers. It's also sad because bar soap can make your face feel really clean. But that is, in part, an illusion. You see, the invisible residue bar soap leaves on the face makes it feel tight, and we tend to equate that feeling with cleanliness.
If you don't believe that your bar soap leaves a residue, try one of these fun experiments.
1.) Take your bar of soap and lather it up well. Rub the lather on a glass surface. Now rinse the glass with a bit of warm water. The glass will not come up as crystal clear as if you do the same experiment with a lather from liquid soap.
2.) Take a shower using bar soap on your body one day, and the next day, use a liquid or gel soap. Look at your nail beds, near the cuticle, after each shower. You will see ugly white residue there the day of your bar soap shower, but not on the day of your liquid soap shower.
If your science experiments yield different results than these, you are most probably, like many soap addicts, just in denial about your problem.
Some of you may be thinking "O.K., but what's so bad about a little residue?" TRUST ME, the road to (bad skin) hell is paved with soap residue!
Soap residue can irritate skin, especially if you have more sensitive skin, or hard (mineralized) faucet water, which rinses off bar soap very poorly. Irritation can cause itching, rashes and blotchiness.
Residue can clog the pores, obviously, and cause breakout. Lastly, "residue-face" is not the most glowing visage one can imagine. Hence, companies like Clinique, who sell bar soap for the face, have to also sell strong toners to remove the residue, and then greasy moisturizer to counteract the dryness. Talk about brilliant marketing.
Bar soap has other evils as well, I'm afraid. They do only a fair job of removing makeup, since it's hard for something (soap) to remove something (makeup) if it's busy depositing something (residue) at the same time.
This is why your cotton ball shows dirt after using a toner. Unless you use a gel or liquid cleanser, of course, in which case your cotton ball is more likely to come away clean. Hmmm... dirty face or clean face... I don't know, that Gift with Purchase is pretty tempting.
Bar soap is also a germ fest, for obvious reasons. And since bar soap leaves the same residue on your sink and shower that it does on your face, clean-up is harder. But I digress...
THE REVIEW:
It's HUGE, and it's fragrance free, and those are the only good things about this soap.
Oh, except that it comes in a very cool, stylish silver wrapper that you will hate to throw away, assuming you are still hell bent on trying this product, which I shudder to contemplate.
The soap costs $10, and is accompanied not only by the rather environmentally unfriendly duo of box-plus-wrapper, but also by a mint green domed soap dish! The dish has no air holes in it, unbelievably. Meaning that if you choose to actually sequester your soap in this thing, expect it to be mushy and damp all the time, which will only improve it's efficiency at harboring bacteria. Lovely.
The Clinique Extra Strength Soap is marketed for oily skin. My skin is oily, and it did only a fair job of removing oil... some oil still seemed to be lurking below the surface of my skin when I used it, and my skin felt oilier sooner than when I use a clean-rinsing gel, foaming, or liquid cleanser.
Even though it obviously left some oil deep in my pores, it dried my skin out too much on the surface. This is a common phenomena of bar soaps, which can actually cause the all-too common pathologies of "combination skin" and "oily with surface dryness."
This soap burns when using it on eyes to remove eye makeup. This is a drawback for women who do not want to have to use a separate eye makeup remover.
It should be noted that Clinique does NOT market their soaps to remove face makeup. they want you to use one of their makeup removing products for that, and then use the face soap. Right. Like most bar soaps, this one does only a fair job at removing face makeup.
Finally, this soap has menthol in it. Menthol gives a feeling of temporary freshness, but is a major skin irritant that many dermatologists warn against.
I happen to currently work at a cosmetic counter (not Clinique), so one day I walked over to Clinique and asked my co-worker in white what she really thought about the bar soaps. She said, "Well, I'm also an esthetician, and given what I know about the skin, I would never use a bar soap, and have trouble recommending these. Especially because these bars are just lard and lye." She recommends "Dove" for those hooked on bar soap.
I, on the other hand, recommend medication for those hooked on bar soap.
Recommended:
No
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Epinions.com ID:
thatsmytake
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Reviews written: 83
Trusted by: 65 members
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