cos | geek!

Often when I am visiting someone and use their shower, they say that I should use their soap but I don't think to ask which bottle, specifically, is their shampoo/soap. I don't think to ask because these things are labelled, right?

Except that many times when I'm looking for bottles that say "Shampoo" or "Soap", I instead find an assortment of bottles labelled "Body Wash", "Bath Gel", "Bath & Shower Cream", "Bubble Bath", "Herbal Treatment", and host of other names. Some of these are soaps, some are conditioners, and some are neither (moisturizers, scents, bubbling substances). There's a code. I don't know the code.

Instead, I recently noticed that what I almost absentmindedly just look at the ingredients. I haven't taken an organic chemistry class or test since the 90s, but I can still spot names of compounds that seem like something with a lipid (fatty) tail and a polar head of some sort. If one of the top few ingredients in one of these frilly-named bath products is one of those compounds, then I can use it as soap. I can't read the marketing code, but I can read enough of the chemistry code to find what I'm looking for.

Edit: Conditioners seem to have a lot of fatty alcohols. I don't know why that never threw me off. Maybe because conditioners are labelled "conditioner" so consistently, I got used to it.

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

From:

beah.livejournal.com

body wash, bath gel, bath and shower cream, bubble bath, and the like can all be used as soap. Anything that can be used as soap can be used on hair. Herbal treatment is likely to be a conditioner or some sort. Beware of anything labeled "lotion," though - it's not soap and it won't get you clean, just moist.

(deleted comment)

From:

beah.livejournal.com

Soap in the name trumps all other modifiers.

I was thinking of the new(ish) in-shower body conditioner stuff, which I happen to love, but which is totally not soaplike.

From:

cos

Huh, why is "cream" soap but "lotion" not soap? And what's with calling all these things "gel"? *shakes head*

From:

beah.livejournal.com

Gel is translucent. Cream is opaque. Lotion is moisturizing, unrelated to color.

From:

cos

So does that mean you can have "lotion gel" and "lotion cream"? Or would that be "cream lotion" and "gel lotion"?

From:

beah.livejournal.com

The latter :)

From:

blk

I generally solve this dilemma by reading the instructions and summary. Cleansing things usually use words like "cleanse" or "wash" or "rinse" or "lather" and are to be used with water. Conditioners usually say they are "used best with $CLEANER." Lotions usually say to use after washing or bathing for "smooth" or "soft" or "healthy" skin/hair/etc.

From:

cos

"Oils" get confusing because sometimes they say to use them with a conditioner, or sometimes without, and may or may not refer to a cleaner in the instructions.

(deleted comment)

From:

estheruth.livejournal.com

what about bath oil?

From:

blk

It always seemed to me that oil was more meant for moisturizing and smelling nice. Using anything oil to cleanse seems sorta backwards to me. :)

From:

cos

I haven't seen it in someone's shower, but I definitely remember seeing ads for something called "Murphy's Oil Soap" in the 90s on TV :)

From:

beah.livejournal.com

That's not for people! Murphy's oil soap is to clean and oil furniture and wood floors and saddles and such. Oil does not go on people to get them clean.

From:

cos

Sure, that particular product is. But it does show that they can combine oil and soap in the same product, and who's to say they won't make one for people? Just because I see "oil" in the name doesn't tell me "definitely not soap".

From:

wendolen.livejournal.com

... unless you're in ancient Greece and removing it with a scraper!

From:

electrictruffle.livejournal.com

Or using oil and a scraper on the playa...

-ETR

From:

blk

That's for wood, IIRC, and while you are welcome to use furniture cleanser on YOUR skin, I think I'll stay with my boring old bar soap. :)

From:

cutieperson

Murphy's Oil Soap is to clean & shine wood floors.

From:

concrete.livejournal.com

I remember Castor Oil Soap - the exception to the rule?

From:

surrealestate.livejournal.com

Most (all?) soaps are made with some sort of fat and are labeled as such: olive oil soap, coconut oil soap, etc. But they're soaps made with the oil, they aren't oil.

From:

cos

True, for something to be a soap or soaplike substance serving that purpose, it *must* have a lipid (fat) portion of the compound, which means it is often made from an oil. Which is yet another reason why seeing "Oil" on the label doesn't tell me it's not a soap. Maybe they mean it *is* oil, but maybe they mean it's made from some kind of oil.

The chemical names are much more straightforward. Which is scary :)

From:

savyakoshka.livejournal.com

LOL -- our showers are both full of things that would likely confuse you to all hell.. :) I have lots of "scrubs," and dense little balls that go fizz when you drop them in bath water, and crumbly things that make bubbles, and melty blocks of stuff that make your skin soft... My dear fiancee just goes with it and lets me tell him what to do with what on occasion when he's in the mood for pampering. I've even confused girly girls... ;)

If you ever shower at my house, I'll point you in the right direction!

From:

cos

I have showered at your house, more than once :) And you have pointed me in the right direction. Your assortment of bath & hair products is particularly special!

From:

wendolen.livejournal.com

Likewise (I have two friends who work at Lush and get an amazing discount), but I also go in for the solid shampoos and conditioners. I think there are only two bottles in my shower at all!

From:

greenmouse.livejournal.com

I've been in a similar place! On the boats, my shampoo/conditioner/soap dilemma is solved by a big bottle of almond Dr. Bronners. Works for everything!

On land, my bathroom (I share one with my step-sister, and my step-mom likes to drop things off in it without telling me) has soaks, scrubs, fizzes, these weird little balls with oil, moisturizers, and the like. Finally I've started going to artist's markets and buying weird bar soaps that only I'll use so no one else will touch it. Pine tar soap is one of my favorites. It's black and greasy looking and everyone eyeballs it and goes "...that one's ALL yours."

In my general opinion, I know soap is soap if it's in a bar. If it's a wash, cream, scrub, oil, gel, etc. etc. etc. I usually follow it up with soap. Just in case.

From:

ellipticcurve.livejournal.com

All soaps are fat + alkali.

Whether the fat is oil or goat's milk butter matters, IMHO, not a bit.

I use plain ol' bar soap in my daily ablutions. I like the kind that smell like lavender or whatever, but I'm not picky.

From:

cos

That's not quite true. It's true for a strict definition of "soap" that excludes many soaplike substances used in bath products and other things, that serve the same purpose as soap. Soap in a more general sense (and more practically applicable to identifying the "soaps" among these bath products) is a compound of a lipid and something polar. The something polar may be an alkaline metal ion (as in actual "soap"), or something basic but not technically alkaline (ammonium), or could even be an alcohol, or a positively charged thing, or two-headed with positive and negative polar portions (though I don't think anything like that gets used in shampoos and bath soaps).

From:

wendolen.livejournal.com

I'm just amazed to see how many people actually put real soap on their actual skin every day!

... I'm a sufferer of eczema, so if I put that stuff on my skin, I'd dry up and blow away. I use shampoo on my hair, and friction+water on my body, and sometimes one of the bars of cocoa butter &c that they sell at Lush (with or without scratchy bits) to make sure I'm extra-greased. The shower gels I keep around, I keep because they smell really good. I usually make sure to grease especially well after using them. ;)

From:

feuervogel

I can only use liquid soaps (body wash type things) because bar soap makes my skin very dry and itchy. Even the baby bar by Burt's Bees is too soapy for me.

From:

gayathri.livejournal.com

I have eczema too, and use mostly dove if I'm going to use a 'soap', but when it gets bad (like right now in winter on Long Island, I am a fan of friction and water for most places.)

Cetaphil rocks tho. With or without water.

From:

electrictruffle.livejournal.com

I just started using Cetaphil on my hands, because they really dry out. Cetyl alcohol plus some other stuff. I like it.

For cocoa butter: I love Mycryo, which is a powdered cocoa butter sold for confectionery work. Cheap by cosmetic standards, expensive by food standards, about $30 for 1.5 kilos of the stuff.

It is pure cocoa butter that they manage to grind up without destroying the temper, which is why they use it for confectionery...but the nice thing is that you can just sprinkle it on your skin and rub a bit. Lots easier to deal with than a big chunk of cocoa butter. Works great for massage.

-ETR

From:

barking-iguana.livejournal.com

On the other hand, I have seborrhea, which is more or less the opposite of eczema. If I don't use actual soap on my face, I break out from clogged pores.

From:

tisiphone.livejournal.com

I'm allergic to cocoa butter, so this strategy doesn't work for me :( Which stinks beyond belief, because I loved using Lush's cocoa butter whatever it was that looks like a giant pink cake.