Solid Beauty

 A few years ago I had to make do with a smaller toiletry kit than usual while traveling, as most of my bags were filled with stuff my mom needed (she had just moved out of the country).  It was a good experience for me, since I always carried too many beauty items and didn’t even use most of them once I got where I was going.  One of the tricks I learned was to use as many solid products as possible.  First, I switched from a liquid roll-on deodorant to a stick.  Then I switched out my foaming face cleanser for a bar.  Finally I decided to take it very seriously and figure out just how many liquid products I could switch out for solids to save space in my bag. 

So after telling you how much I can’t get over my dislike of body bar soaps, now I have to tell you that when it comes to traveling, I try to fill my dopp kit with as many solid beauty items as possible.   I am comforted by the fact that the majority of my beauty routine will not have leaked all over my clothes and that I can take all of my toiletries onto the plane with me (anyone who has experienced replacing their entire toiletry bag due to lost or stolen luggage can tell you that once is more than enough). 

Although I’ve never been a big fan of bar soaps for the body, I have no aversion to using solid face soap.  My mother has been using the original Neutrogena bar for over fifty years.  It’s not my cup of tea, but if you have normal skin and want a no muss, no fuss facial bar, this might be the one for you. 

The first facial cleansing bar that I fell for was from Clinique.  Their mild facial soap not only comes in the perfect soap dish (even in travel size), but it is gentle and effective.  They also have an Acne Solutions version now.  But if you need to go in the other direction, you can get the Extra Mild (from what I’ve read, better for sensitive/dry skin). 

My all-time favorite foaming facial bar is the one I can least afford: Erno Lazlo’s Blue.  At $40 a bar it is probably still more affordable than a lot of the liquid cleansers that you would find at Nordstrom or Sephora (you will get more uses out of it), but it’s anywhere from 4-8 times more expensive than your average beauty bar.  It is, however, an amazing cleanser and if I didn’t know just how wrong it would be, I would start collecting the sample size from every Nordstrom in the state (don’t even get me started on the Laszlo Blue Firmarine face cream, which costs almost $200 and feels like your slathering heaven on your face). 

Here is Where I Talk a Lot About LUSH Handmade Cosmetics

Since I can’t drop that much money on a bar of soap, I’ve found a happy medium in the LUSH Full of Grace Serum Bar.  This product is great for sensitive or irritated skin and seems to work for all skin types (but I can only speak for me as a sensitive and oily, but maturing, kinda gal). I was skeptical when I was first introduced to this product, but I was willing to try it underneath a face mask (letting the serum sink in – it was pretty fabulous).  Having tried and loved the way that worked, I took it with me on a trip to a particularly dry climate to use as a moisturizer, since that is how most people seem to use it.  My face got so dried out while I was staying up in the mountains of Utah that I ended up trying Full of Grace as a cleanser.  After rinsing and patting my face dry, it felt so good that I just didn’t follow up with a moisturizer.  I found that my skin was happily without red and felt hydrated and soft.  The trick to this product seems to be figuring out how you, personally, want to use it.  But for travel, why wouldn’t you want to try something so flexible?

Going back to body wash for a moment, my friend Jodi would never forgive me if I neglected to mention another great LUSH product: ShowerJellies.  LUSH only makes two at this time, but they’re great options.  Sweetie Pie has a fruity scent and leaves a slight sparkle behind.  Whoosh (Jodi and my favorite) is packed with citrus and will really wake you up.  I had a hard time working with Whoosh the first time I tried it, but I have now been shown the way (pinch off a piece, add to loofah or mesh sponge, rub together and you’ve got lather).

LUSH’s line of come highly recommended by many people I know who have dry skin, though I prefer to use their massage bar, Strawberry Feels Forever, on the occasion that I use a solid moisturizer (in other words, only when I travel).  I am also very curious about one of their new releases, Putty For Your Hands which is a hand soap and lotion in one.  I may have to go to my local LUSH tomorrow to see if this new product will finally rid me of cracked and bleeding knuckles and ragged cuticles.

If you want to be able to take a whole slew of bathing products with you on your travels but have no idea how you would make enough room, consider LUSH’s non-liquid bathing options.  Bath bombs aren’t exactly the best shape for packing (being round and all), but I did once pack several in an oversized suitcase and gave them as gifts to the people I was visiting.  It left me with enough room in my suitcase on the way back for the things I’d bought on vacation.  However, most of the time you’re going to want something compact and I can’t think of anything better for that than LUSH bath melts and bubble bars.  While not all of the bath melts are teensy, both Dreamtime and You’ve Been Mangoed will fit in the palm of your hand, making them quite packable.  The bubble bars come in a variety of shapes and sizes, but again you can look for the smaller ones in a scent you’ll enjoy and make yourself a little bath kit for the road.  When I just can’t bring myself to pack a bunch of Honey Bee bath bombs, I will usually end up with a few Ma Bars and a Mangoed or two in my kit.  And there really is no end to the flavor combinations you can create by adding various items to the bathtub you end up with.

I haven’t tried them yet, but LUSH also just released “reusable bubble bars” on a stick.  Everything’s better on a stick, right?  

If you haven’t saved enough space in your travel bag by now, LUSH also offers both solid shampoos and one solid conditioner.  The conditioner, Jungle, has a lingering, slightly fruity scent and works great as a rinse-out or leave-in.  I know a few people who really love it, but I had a hard time working it through my hair – don’t let that dissuade you, though, as I have long, wavy, coarse hair that weighs more than my head.  On the other hand, I’m a huge fan of the LUSH shampoo bars.  The only problem I have is picking which one to use. 

Seanik’s marine scent is one of my favorites and it softens the heck out of my hair.  Soak and Float smells like a campfire (which I didn’t mind, but I’m sure some people would), but also helps fight dandruff.  Trichomania has always been a hit with my dry, thin-haired friends.  But Ultimate Shine is the bar I keep going back to because my coarse hair can always use the extra glossiness and this bar gets the oil off my scalp without drying out the rest of my hair.

One more, for the road… I will be ordering the LUSH Hard Shampoo Bar for my next trip to Italy to help me fight the horrible, horrible things that happen to my hair and scalp when they are exposed to the minerals in Genoa’s hard water.  I may even use it as my body soap, since I have yet to find anything that keeps me from feeling like I’ve just rolled in sand after showering there.

If you’re looking for one-stop shopping for solid products, LUSH is a pretty obvious choice.  They’ve got everything from solid toner (Toner Tabs, which you add to water) to solid toothpaste featured in Real Simple (Toothy Tabs) to solid dish soap (one of their new releases for Mother’s Day, The Dish Fairy).  There is just no end to solid solutions there.  But they aren’t the only place where you can find solid items to travel with (or love so much that you want to use them at home). 

Here are a few solid sellers we’ve heard good things about:

Badger Healthy BodyCare:  In addition to the lip and hand balms they’ve long been known for (sold at stores like Whole Foods Market and Wegman’s), Badger also carries tinned balms for your body, your feet, your cuticles, even your baby.  They also have a beauty balm that can be used for targeting areas like underneath the eyes and stretch marks. 

L’Occitane en Provence: This French skincare line contains one of my favorite items on the planet, Almond Shower Oil, but I wouldn’t dream of taking that on a plane with me.  Their solid offerings are the Shea Butter Ultra Rich Face Soap, Mom & Baby Balm and various sizes of pure shea butter in a tin, including a rose scented one (my favorite was the apricot, but it looks like it was discontinued).  They also carry a few different solid perfumes.

From Sephora…

   

There may not be a solid product for every one of your needs, but at Sephora you can find solid perfumes (by TOCCA and Pacifica), cleansing balms (like Ren No. 1 Cleansing Balm and The Balm's Balms Away), body balms (like Benefit Bathina) and multipurpose balms (like Josie Maran's Argan Balm in a tin or a stick).

The Little Known…  

Then there are the handcrafted, all natural items that you can only get on one random site or another – but that doesn't make them any less worth a go.  Check out Sylvie L's solid shampoos and conditioners; One, a skincare site that sells solid shampoo and body moisturizers; and the sweet-smelling, moisturizing Vanilla Bee Bar, available at Amazon.com and in our store.

No matter which products you choose to go with, remember that it is possible to bring your entire beauty routine with you and it doesn't have to take up an entire suitcase. 

The Body Bar Reviews

About a month ago, our Megan challenged me to write about my dislike of bar soaps.  I took this as the opportunity to try even more bar soaps and determine if there really is no bar out there that will make me happy.  I had already collected a few to try, but I figured a few more wouldn’t hurt.

LUSH Sea VegetableSoap:  

Price: $6.66, but you can ask for as much or as little as you want.

The scent of this lovely LUSH soap is supposed to be lime, lavender and seaweed.  The lime is definitely there and it’s not overpowering citrusy.  It is also well-balanced by a marine fragrance (for those who associate seaweed with the smell of fish, this soap does not have a remotely fishy smell).  I didn’t get the lavender, but it is better when it’s subtle anyway.  This would be a good fragrance for men or women.

As with most of the bar soaps I tried, LUSH’s Sea Vegetable Soap felt like it dragged across my skin (instead of gliding – I love the gliding).  I tried using it on a mesh sponge, but couldn’t get enough lather unless I reapplied it a few times.   It did leave my skin soft, but since I have combination skin and live in a humid climate, this is probably not the right soap for someone with dry skin. 

I will use this again as hand soap because I love the fragrance, the way it looks and the exfoliating salt.

Given the wide variety of solid soaps you can get from LUSH, don’t be put off by this review – if you want a solid soap, there is a good chance you’ll find one you like there in a really wonderful fragrance.

Philosophy PurityMade Simple Cleansing Bar: 

Price: $20, but I got it for a little over $12 at TJ Maxx.

I found this at my local TJ Maxx for about eight dollars off the average price and I really wanted to love it.  Purity has a nice, clean, soapy smell and a creamy texture.  It lathers exceptionally well, even if you don’t use a mesh sponge or loofah, and that creaminess glides over skin without feeling oily.  I liked it so much at first that I used it on both my face and body (it’s meant for both).  But after a week and a half, it was drying out the skin on my forehead to the point of peeling.  My skin is combo instead of oily these days and it is sensitive, so this might still be a great face soap for someone with oily and/or younger skin.

I will travel with this as a body soap, but take along a separate face cleanser.

Scottish Fine Soaps HoneyB Bath Soap: 

Price: $10, but prices vary depending on where you buy.

Made with honey, vitamin E and shea butter, I had high hopes for this soap.  The first thing I noticed was the scent.  Honey can be a subtle fragrance or a sticky sweet one.  Scottish Fine Soaps definitely got the balance right on this one – a blend of honey, milk, vanilla and sweet amber, according to the brand’s site.  I also love the packaging, but as cute as it looks sitting on my shelf, I have to like how it works.

This soap lathered very well and retained that great, subtle smell, but after two uses made my skin itch.  This could have been a reaction to some random ingredient that won’t bug anybody’s skin but mine, but sometimes it’s a question of how much fragrance is added (the more fragrance, the faster skin gets irritated).  Because of the skin irritation, I can’t even use it as hand soap.

I will shave off pieces of this into a bowl and put it in my closet so that everything smells like it.

Canus Goat’s MilkSoap (in Apple):

Price: $2.29 only at Whole Foods Market in this scent.

The last bar soap I bought for this experiment caught my eye at Whole Foods Market.  There was an endcap display of these beautiful Canus bulk soaps in a variety of scents and colors.  When I saw the great price, I considered it, but it was the goat’s milk part that made me buy it – because it reminded me of Michelle’s goats on Goat Berries (if you don't follow this site yet – Pasqualina just gave birth and you must see the adorable pictures of her fluffy twins on the Goat Berries Facebook page, then LIKE the page just for giving you that moment of cuteness).

This soap has a nice, light, crisp scent.  But I honestly don’t know if I did get the apple one – I can’t say for sure because all of the Canus soaps are described as “fresh, light and grassy,” so…all I know is it’s light green and smells good. 

This soap lathers well, though there is a bit of drag, and it kept my skin hydrated.  It doesn’t sound very exciting, but this is the only soap I kept in my shower and continued to use. 

Just until something else catches my eye.

Other Soaps I’ve Known…

In addition to the bar soaps I purchased to try this year, here is the rundown of the ones I tried to like before.

Dove Sensitive Skin Bar:  Too much drag, which in this case may be because it was too moisturizing for my skin.  It did not leave me feeling clean.  That said, the Dove bar soaps are a huge hit among my friends.  Of the people I spoke with who prefer bar soaps, almost all of them stated that they use Dove.  Our Megan prefers the Dove Exfoliating Bar (see her comment on the yesterday’s post), which I have not yet tried.

LUSH Queen of Hearts:  (http://lush.com/shop/products/bath-shower/soap/sea-vegetable-) seemed like a good option, since I could use it on my face and my body, but I didn’t love the smell (didn’t mind it, either) and it didn’t foam that well.  In the end, just didn’t measure up enough to buy it again, but I did use up the whole bar.

Kiss My Face Olive & Aloe Bar Soap: http://www.kissmyface.com/product/item/18  Wanted to like this because it is SLS free (among many other things) and has a light fragrance that I liked, but it didn’t lather well and it melted into my bar soap holder overnight, making it nearly impossible to remove the next day.

Next time on The Thinnest Skin:  Solid beauty products you’ll love to travel with…

Setting the Bar

Bar soap.  So often regulated to (non-metrosexual) straight men and bathroom décor.  I have always  preferred frilly, foamy, scented, luxurious body washes.  I like that they can be mixed with a scrub or used as bath bubbles.  They’re just so flexible.  I like the variety available in Sephora and by so many beauty brands.  Of course, if there is a particularly pretty, nicely scented bar soap, it easily wins me over for hands.  But for the most part I’ve always left bar soap to men, assuming that all men are like my dad and brother, who could never betray their Lever 2000.  It wasn’t until I started traveling more, ran out of money and realized my current liquid body wash was giving me contact dermatitis that I was willing to reexamine my arguments against the bar. 

The arguments against bar soap seem to be:

1.       It gets covered with bacteria when different people in your household use it.

a.       Not a problem for me, as I’m the only one who uses my shower.

b.      According to an article from The New YorkTimes online, the bar should get rinsed off between users (I get the impression that's more for the ick factor), but there doesn’t seem to be any scientific evidence to support that cross-contamination between users can occur anyway.

2.       It’s easier to find bar soap that does not have sulfates (a surfactant commonly used as a foaming agent that can, usually only in large quantities, irritate skin) in it.

a.       I haven’t examined every single brand out there, but quite a few of the bar soaps I looked at did contain either Sodium Laureth Sulfate or Sodium Lauryl Sulfate. 

b.      If you want to avoid SLS altogether, look for all natural soaps like Canus Goat’s Milk, or you can even make your own.

c.       All the arguments I’ve read for using SLS insist that in small amounts it shouldn’t irritate skin.  If you have really sensitive skin, however, you probably will want to avoid it.

3.       It melts into mush in the shower.

a.       All that is required here is a good soap dish (or soap saver) and not putting the soap in the direct path of the water.

4.       It doesn’t produce the same kind of lather as body washes.

a.       I can attest to this with some bars (having tried quite a few of them in the past several months), but it is simply not true of ALL bars.  And the same can be said of certain shower gels/liquids.  I love L’Occitane’s Almond Shower Oil (heavenly and subtly scented), but I always use too much because it isn’t meant to be foamy and it drives me crazy after a while.

5.       Once it gets too small, it barely lathers at all and you have to throw it away.

a.       I admit to getting irritated by this, but I recently read somewhere that all you have to do it is press it into the next bar you use…and that made me feel really ridiculous for all the slivers I’d ever thrown away.

This isn’t your father’s Irish Spring. 

The last real argument against bar soap, which was my own, was that you generally don’t find it in a frilly or fun or particularly luxurious form.  It turns out that bar soap can be just as frilly and luxurious as shower gel these days (check out the Claus Porto and Molton Brown lines at Blue Mercury - if you’re in the DC area, there’s one in Bethesda).  And then some, like the Bliss Fat Girl Soap, have things that you’re not going to find in a body wash – in this case, the nubs turn it into a “stimulating massage bar.”  

After talking to most of my friends about what they use, I found that it may not be evenly split between bar soap and body wash (body wash was preferred), but it’s pretty damn close.  In the end, it’s a question of what works for you, personally.  There are some people who think that shower gel, body washes, etc. are a scam and bar soap is the only way to go.  Personally – and I can now officially say this, having tried many many bar soaps just to be sure – I simply do not like bar soap.  But now that I’ve tested a few and figured out what I do like about them, I see the practicality therein and I will definitely be taking a bar with me the next time I travel somewhere by plane.  As far as travel goes, the less I have leaking in my bag the better.  And I like to occasional get onto a plane without having to check any luggage – solid products are the way to go if that’s your aim.

Sorry to leave you hanging – tomorrow on The Thinnest Skin: Jess tested them, you get to read all about her bar soap adventures.  Brands reviewed: LUSH, Canus, Philosophy, Dove, Ivory, Scottish B and Kiss My Face.

Sensitive and Impressionable

I will be the first to admit that I have an unhealthy love of lotions and potions.  I try not to be sensitive about it (no, really), though having one friend roll his eyes at my insistence that I'm in recovery, made me reconsider whether or not my hoarding days are truly over.  One thing that I can say for myself is that I have been rethinking my skincare for the last couple of years.

First, my skin has changed.  Once I got into my mid-thirties that oily skin I had so resented as a teenager started drying out.  My previous aversion to anything with the words “cream” or “oil” in it and anything that doesn’t foam started to dissipate.  Then I realized that, with my change in career, I could no longer afford to spend every Saturday at LUSH and Sephora, especially since I was more of a collector than a frequent user.  Next I had to come to terms with a different climate – from Northern California to Northern Virginia.  Finally, I moved to the DC Metro Area and (after I'd settled in – about a week later) I took a good look around me and realized that very few of the women I've met wear full makeup.  In fact, I’m pretty sure some don't wear any.

I am not by any means saying that I felt an instant need to conform to the beauty standard around me, though I do believe we are bound to be influenced by just that.  In this case, what I felt was relief.  I looked around at all these lovely fresh faces and saw how elegant and classy the women looked despite their lack of…well, shellac, and I was impressed.  I came here thinking that DC would be packed with women who wore makeup like war paint.  Women who would undoubtedly pair their heavy makeup with starched politician hair (you know what I’m saying).  And those women are here, too, but the majority of women I’ve met keep it simple and look good doing it. 

Riding on the Metro

The first time I rode the Metro into DC, I sat across from a woman who must have been in her mid-forties and looked more confident and comfortable than I think I have ever felt.  She was wearing an outfit that some of the women I know would have considered “a bit young for her,” and she looked great wearing it.  She wore her hair short and seemingly effortlessly styled with the barest traces of makeup on her face.  I do hope that she couldn’t tell I was staring, only because she couldn’t have known that I was thinking, “Oh lady, I want to be you when I grow up…you know, next year.”

The stranger on the Metro may have been what it took to completely change the way I looked at myself, beauty-wise.  Since all the women I’d met in DC had been younger than me, this woman was the one who had the greatest impact.

Cha Cha Cha

Let me take a step back for a moment.  I love beauty products, but in general, we are really unkind to our skins (I can get away with making that a plural, right?).  It’s hard to know what is truly good for you when you are drowning in cosmetic advertising, a delightful array of new products every season (I am such a sucker for those) and supposedly expert advice being thrown at you from every direction.  What you should do, must do, mustn’t do and should have been doing all these years but, wait, it’s not too late if you use this one miracle product!  In the end, you have to decide what really works for your skin.  If you have dry-as-the-desert skin, it’s unlikely you’re going to love the bar soap my mom’s been using to clean her normal-to-oily skin for about fifty years.  And if maturing hasn’t had any impact on your face feeling like an oil slick, I’m fairly certain you’re not going to want to go anywhere near my favorite cream cleanser. 

The women who contribute to the content of this site endeavor to show you options – regardless  of skin type, whether you love to get made up or love a bare face, etc. -  tricks we’ve learned, mistakes we’ve made and what we love in the wide world of beauty.  We also want to know what you want to know about, so send your queries to DCLostGirl@gmail.com or leave a comment on one of the posts and we’ll see what we can do about it.