by solveeczema | May 22, 2007 | About Products
Now that Unscented Dove has changed its surfactant formula, I can no longer recommend it for the washing test. The new formula may be fine, but I cannot make further recommendations until I know. I will update my web site as soon as I can. (I wish it were easier to update the site!!)
I looked at the ingredients lists of nearly every bar soap on Drugstore.com. Fortunately, Drugstore.com lists ingredients for most products and is easy to search. They have a sale right now with large discounts on most of the bar soaps. At any rate, I found many pure soap products, I will see which ones are non-drying, and post some opinions on those as soon as I can.
The products I looked at fell mainly into a few categories:
1) True soap(s), fatty acids, glycerin, water softening agents, non-surfactant additives (like colors, fragrances).
2) True soaps(s), glycerin (whether added or from the soap-making processing), non-surfactant additives (like colors, fragrances, oils).
3) Mild detergent-true soap combinations nearly identical to the old unscented Dove formula, with fatty acids, water softeners, non-surfactant additives like fragrances and color.
4) Detergents, non-surfactant additives.
COMMENTS:
I have a lot of hope for products in categories 1 and 3. The water softening agents in particular are a great help for rinsing. So not only is the soap safe for kids with detergent-reactive eczema, but these products tend to rinse well from skin and shower walls (reducing mold that tends to grow on residues). I have found some good products in category 2, and I am presently using one, but it leaves quite a film in the shower even though I have soft water.
Surfactant composition varied within the same brand. One “flavor” of a given brand might be all soap, another all detergent. I found I had to be very careful to get EXACTLY the right “flavor”, some of the products within the same brand looked nearly identical per packaging, but had vastly different ingredients. In some cases, only one of the “flavors” would be okay for those with detergent-reactive eczema.
by solveeczema | May 13, 2007 | Solveeczema.org
I have heard from several readers who had difficulty viewing the site with Internet Explorer. Most importantly, they can’t view the full site; IE only shows half of The Solutions page.
The Solutions page has a list of products that work. The list can be found near the end of the page. If you can’t view it with IE, Firefox works fine. You can get a free copy of the Firefox browser on the Mozilla site.
I have heard from many people asking for a list of products. I assumed they had contacted me after reading an article, so I referred them to solveeczema.org, thinking they hadn’t seen the web site. I wonder now how many of them had IE and couldn’t VIEW the site.
Since I can’t figure out how to put a permanent link to the site on this page, for anyone who found the blog first, the site URL is http://www.solveeczema.org .
by solveeczema | May 2, 2007 | About Eczema, Must Reads, Solveeczema.org
I spoke with a telephone representative at Dove today. Apparently, both unscented Dove and unscented Dove for Sensitive Skin have technically been discontinued.
Dove has replaced both with a bar called unscented Dove Sensitive Skin. The new bar has a different ingredients list than either of the two products it is replacing:
Ingredients of the new unscented Dove for Sensitive Skin, as of January 2007:
Sodium Lauroyl Isethionate
Stearic Acid
Sodium Tallowate or Sodium Palmitate
Lauric Acid
Sodium Isethionate
Water
Sodium Stearate
Cocamidopropyl Betaine
Sodium Cocoate or Sodium Pam Kernelate
Sodium Chloride
Tetrasodium EDTA
Tetrasodium Etidronate
Maltol
Titanium Dioxide
As I have noted on my site, unscented Dove was a combination of soap and mild detergent. (For more about this, please see the web site, www. solveeczema.org, The Solutions page, search on the term “Dove”.)
The following are chemical names for true soaps:
Sodium Tallowate – soap from tallow
Sodium Cocoate – soap from coconut oil
Sodium Palmitate – soap from palm kernel oil
Sodium Stearate
Soap has gotten kind of a bad rap in some circles since the introduction of detergents. Some of it was deserved, as some soaps can be quite harsh. But so can some detergents. (This is all separate from the eczema issue as discussed on my site.) It’s unfortunate for people with eczema that all soaps were tarred with the same brush. But this is likely why products like Dove list “Sodium Tallowate” (tallow soap) and Sodium Cocoate (coconut oil soap) rather than just saying the product contains soaps.
The first ingredient listed for the old unscented Dove was Sodium Cocoyl Isethionate, a mild detergent.
A good resource describing most of the ingredients in the old and new products can be found at this blog [link]. (There is a straightforward discussion of the purpose of various ingredients, but just remember the issue of eczema, detergents and membrane permeability is a different discussion.)
The first ingredient listed on the new unscented Dove Sensitive Skin bar — the product replacing both the old unscented Dove and unscented Dove for Sensitive Skin — is Sodium Lauroyl Isethionate, a mild detergent that I believe is similar to Sodium Cocoyl Isethionate. The true soaps in the bar are essentially the same as in the previous products.
However, when I say “similar”, I do not know what that means from the standpoint of what it does to the hydration properties of the final product. I will have to watch and see what happens with this product before I decide how to best update the Solveeczema.org web site. I have bought the new product, and my only comment at the moment is that the old unscented Dove had, in my opinion, a nicer feel to it.
Some positive developments: The new product does not contain a masking fragrance as the old unscented Dove did. The old unscented Dove was so well-tolerated by people with eczema even with the masking fragrance, but it’s one less concern for anyone who doesn’t think the masking fragrance was necessary. The oils in the old unscented Dove for Sensitive Skin, including Sweet Almond Oil, are not in the new product. This is probably a good development for people concerned about nut oils. (I like Sweet Almond Oil in soaps, but my son is not allergic to nuts.)
So, in the meantime, if you are trying to locate a new soap product, I will try to put some reviews of my experiences with new products on this blog soon. Bottom line: if you are making the switch, find a non-drying true soap, it’s the safest if you are problem-solving the eczema. Products with the same surfactant and fatty acid profile as the old unscented Dove (the soap and mild detergent combination) are probably also fine, there are a few on the market, I believe. Just remember that the combination of ingredients is probably an important factor. I will try to post more about this soon.
Later post on this issue: No longer recommend Dove for the washing test.
by solveeczema | Apr 11, 2007 | About Eczema, About Products, Must Reads, Solveeczema.org
I am frequently asked about recipes to make Soap Flake Laundry Powder starting with bar soaps like Ivory Bar Soap.
Here’s a great link (ignore the word “detergent” in the recipe titles, it’s just another example of how we use the terms “soap” and “detergent” interchangeably without thinking): Link
Another place to find recipes is on Recipezaar.com — as I point out on the web site, these too are entitled “detergent” recipes. Evaluate them by the list of ingredients, not the title.
by solveeczema | Apr 11, 2007 | Off Topic Posts
Couldn’t help myself. I won’t make too many off-topic posts, and I don’t know how long this link will last, but this is about what happened when Joshua Bell played his Stradivarius for 45 minutes in a Washington D.C. subway during rush hour. At the top of the article is a link to the audio – enjoy!
Link to Pearls Before Breakfast
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/04/04/AR2007040401721.html”
If the link stops working, you might be able to find the article again by searching on “joshua bell subway” – it is printed in the Washington Post.
A quote from the article by reporter Gene Weingarten:
“If we can’t take the time out of our lives to stay a moment and listen to one of the best musicians on Earth play some of the best music ever written; if the surge of modern life so overpowers us that we are deaf and blind to something like that — then what else are we missing?”
