Although soap has been used to clean clothes for nearly 4,000 years, it has undergone a number of transformations which eventually led to our present day detergents. Manufacturing detergent is much less expensive than soap, and it has a number of other practical properties, but it is not the best thing for your clothes or your skin. In fact, detergent can cause and exacerbate dry skin and other skin problems. Using a natural dry skin treatment is a must to offset the damage, but you might find that reverting from detergent back to soap will also be beneficial.

Until early this century, laundry soap was made by combining animal fats or vegetable oils with lye or other caustic substances and then forming it into a bar. However, the process for manufacturing soap flakes was patented in the 1920’s and these became much more popular as the flakes dissolved more easily in water.

Detergents were developed WWI and WWII: when animal fats and vegetable oils became scarce, the search was on for new raw materials. Unfortunately, the basic material decided upon was mineral oil, a by-product of the distillation process that turns petroleum into gasoline. While mineral oil has many beneficial industrial uses - cutting fluids, lubricating oils, coolants, preservatives on utensils and wood cutting boards, sealers for soapstone countertops, cleaners and solvents for inks in printmaking, to name a few examples - it is very toxic. Several studies have found it to be dangerous for any kind of skin care product, including those used to treat dry skin. Even if mineral oil was not toxic, it is not practical as skin care treatment as it clogs the pores by coating the skin, prevents elimination of toxins and impedes normal cell function and cell development resulting in premature aging.

So, what are your options? Although not that easy to find, soap flakes are still around. A good Internet search will yield several sources. They can be used alone or combined with bleach and other products to make laundry soaps that get your clothes really clean and soft, and don’t cause dry skin. Although using a good dry skin treatment product is still advised, using soap flakes instead of detergents will put you one step ahead of the game.

Author, Gloria MacTaggart, is a freelance writer who contributes articles on skin care for The National Skin Care Institute. For more information, visit http://www.skincarenet.org