The Best Products for Sensitive Skin

Is your skin super sensitive? Does it break out in acne, turn red, look more oily than usual, or result in some sort of rash when you try new commercial soaps, lotions, or other skincare products?

While some people may just be prone to having sensitive skin due to genetics, many are surprised to know that the ingredients in their commercial skincare and beauty products could quite possibly be leading to their sensitive skin related issues. That was the case with our son, Chance, and his eczema and after further research, we learned that when you have sensitive skin, many of the commercial soaps will only irritate, dry out, and damage your skin further. You need something that’s cleansing and gentle enough for everyday use, yet helps the skin replenish itself with the nutrients it craves while sealing in moisture. Sound too good to be true?

When we discovered that the average bar of soap contains 15-20 chemicals, we realized that if we couldn’t find a product that would help our son Chance’s eczema in store, we needed to make a product of our own. After some trial and error (and plenty of product research), we created an all natural goat milk soap that had a tremendous soothing effect for our son, Chance. That led to the creation of the Bend Soap Company.

Since then, we have been able to create a goat milk soap formula that can be safely used on even the most sensitive skin types. So safe and effective that you can use a single bar of soap as an all-natural replacement for body wash, face wash, and even as a shampoo. Choosing natural soaps and skincare products are often the best solutions to moisturize, replenish, and give sensitive skin new life without painful irritation.

Signs of Sensitive Skin

The signs and symptoms of sensitive skin are different for everyone, but for most, they're often aggravated by the products we put on our skin. If you have sensitive skin, you may experience reactions such as...

• Burning
• Itching
• Stinging
• Redness (blushing and flushing of the skin)
• Dryness
• Tightness
• Bumpy skin

What’s Causing My Sensitive Skin?

So now that we know what sensitive skin may look like, does that mean sensitive skin just… Sensitive? Well, while you may have your parent’s to thank for sensitive skin, there are a few other possible culprits.

• Skin disorders & allergies: Allergies and other skin conditions such as eczema, psoriasis, rosacea, and dermatitis, are a few major causes of sensitive skin. Often, such conditions are also connected to internal sensitivities to food products or allergies.
  
  
• Damaged, unhealthy skin: Overly dry or injured skin that can no longer protect the nerve endings. 
  
  
• Environment: Exposure to harsh environmental elements such as sun, wind, and excessive heat or cold.
  
  
• Household cleaning products: Sensitivity to commercial cleaning products or laundry detergents can be the problem.
  
  
• Hidden ingredients in products: Commercial skincare products containing all sorts of toxic ingredients (see below) can also cause irritation.

Why Commercial Soaps Can Irritate Sensitive Skin

Commercial soaps are mass produced and most aren’t formulated to protect sensitive skin. In fact, common chemicals in commercial soaps can actually dry out your skin and make it worse! These are just a few harmful ingredients to avoid when you have sensitive skin.

• Sulfates: Remove natural oils from your skin which often leads to dryness and skin irritation. 
  
  
• Salicylic Acid: A common chemical used to treat acne and oily skin. This causes dryness, skin irritation, redness, or burning if overused.
  
  
• Fragrance: Synthetic fragrances are a common trigger for skin irritation. These are often laden with phthalates and can cause skin rashes and even headaches, coughing, and other respiratory irritation. 
  
  
• Parabens: These chemicals can enter your bloodstream and be mistaken by your body for estrogen. Extra estrogen in your body can lead to acne, fat storage, decreased muscle mass and even reproductive difficulties. Needless to say, it’s an ingredient to avoid!

The consistent use of these products containing the above toxic ingredients can also lead to a bigger problem: cancers, hormonal disruptions, diseases, and other issues. The skin absorbs the toxins directly into the bloodstream, causing the body to react in many ways. Sometimes, the reaction is seen back on the skin, as eczema or another skin condition.

"Common chemicals in commercial soaps can actually dry out your skin and make it worse!"

Combine these harmful ingredients above — and more — together and what do you get? A recipe for irritated, sensitive skin!

Choosing Products for Sensitive Skin

So, what products can you use on sensitive skin? Stick with all-natural ingredients that are good for your skin. And while we make no claims about our products curing any skin conditions, for many folks, like us, they’ve found the all-natural skincare products to be more soothing and less irritating than alternative skin care products. Here at Bend Soap Company, we offer a range of products formulated for sensitive skin that contain all-natural ingredients and ZERO synthetic fragrances, GMO oils, parabens, fillers, or other junk.

Some name brands may offer sensitive skin soap, but even these can contain chemicals to avoid. When choosing products for your sensitive skin, you should be able to read and understand what the label says. In other words, if you can’t pronounce the words on a label of soap, put it back!

For sensitive skin, we recommend trying out the following natural products:

Goat Milk Soap

Our Unscented Goat Milk Soap and Oatmeal & Honey Goat Milk Soap are two bars that we make here at Bend Soap Company that do not contain any essential oils, making them more gentle and less irritating options to use on delicate skin types than other big name brand soaps.

While goat milk soap isn’t a cure for skin conditions, the natural ingredients and benefits of farm-fresh goat's milk can give your skin the hydration and vitamins it craves.

Milk Bath

Adding a few handfuls of our milk bath (again, the Unscented and Oatmeal & Honey scents will be a great place to start) to a tub of warm water and then soaking allows your skin to drink up all of the vitamins and minerals found naturally inside of fresh goat’s milk. Our son Chance suffered from painful eczema symptoms until we switched to bathing him with our amazing goat milk soaps and eventually made the switch to our milk bath. Within three weeks, his symptoms were practically gone! More on this story is available in our "What We Did to Help Our Son’s Eczema" post. 

Goat Milk Lotion

We’ve also had many customers use our Unscented Goat Milk Lotion for various skin conditions (typically applied after soaking in a milk bath) and share with us how soft and hydrated their skin feels after using this product. We love that we only have to apply it once during the day for our skin to stay moisturized for so long and have found that this is most likely due to the fact that we never use chemical ingredients or alcohols in our products.

Natural Deodorant

While many people can use baking soda over their entire body without any negative reactions, for some folks, they find out that they have a sensitivity to this ingredient when their underarms form a red, irritated rash. This is often due to their underarms having a lower threshold for the amount and pH of baking soda that they can be in contact with as baking soda can interfere with our body's pH levels. When the pH levels are too high in the underarm area, it often results in red, irritated, itchy armpits which is a clear indication that your body does not like something. Having this type of reaction to a natural deodorant that contains baking soda is far more common than people would think and is exactly the reason why we've created baking soda free options of our natural deodorant like our Apricot Jasmine Natural Deodorant (Baking Soda Free) and Honey Grapefruit Natural Deodorant (Baking Soda Free).

Sugar Scrub

While we understand and respect that everyone’s skin is different, here’s a recent story from a crew member in the Soap House: one of our employees recently had an eczema flare up and said he found using the Unscented Sugar Scrub to be very effective.

The sugars helped exfoliate his dry, itchy skin and the rich oils in the sugar scrub were able to soak right down into the new, healthier layers of skin below. He also seals in the moisture by applying our Unscented Goat Milk Lotion to his skin and shared that he went from using eczema creams 3-4 times a day to using sugar scrubs and all-natural lotion during, this morning/evening shower routine and didn’t need to use anything else in between!   

Are You Ready to Love Your Skin?

When you choose Bend Soap Company products, you’re choosing healthy, happy skin now and in the future. Give one or all of the products we listed above a try! We’re confident you’ll love the newfound silky smooth cleanliness you’ll feel (without any of the dryness and irritation!)  

Back to you: Do you have sensitive skin? What Bend Soap Co. products have you found to be the best for your skin? Join the conversation by leaving a comment below!

Other Posts You Might Enjoy

• Blog Post: The Best Soap for Eczema Relief
• Blog Post: What We Did to Help Our Son's Eczema
• Blog Post: Our Story: How Goat Milk Soap Helped Our Son's Eczema
• Blog Post: 8 Reasons to Choose Oatmeal & Honey Milk Bath
• Blog Post: Mama Marilee's Goat Milk Laundry Detergent