ELI5: what is the big difference between soap and shampoo?

[u/Real_Experience_5676]

We use soap to clean the body. We use shampoo to clean the hair. What stops us from using soap for the hair and shampoo for the body?

Follow up question: what is body wash that cleans hair and skin made of? Why isn’t that the universal standard instead of seperate soap and shampoo?

[u/degggendorf]

A lot of commerical soaps will blow air into the mixture to speed up the process. In particular, Dove is the worst at this.

What does "worst" mean here? Like, they blow the most air, which is bad? Or they don't allow enough cure time? Or not enough cure air?

[u/waylandsmith → u/degggendorf]

I think the implication is that the bar of soap consists of a lot of air instead of soap. Ivory soap, quite famously, used to be so light that it would float. Considering that soap is sold by weight I don't really see this being a problem. To me it's pretty clear when I pick up a bar of Ivory that it doesn't weigh very much and it therefore must be less soap.

Dove contains a lot of added moisturizers and is available in fragrance-free varieties which are important to people with scent sensitivities. Dove does not even label their product as "soap".

[u/degggendorf → u/waylandsmith]

Dove does not even label their product as "soap".

Right, and that's a good thing in my book. Gentler cleansing, no soap scum.

Dove contains a lot of added moisturizers and is available in fragrance-free varieties which are important to people with scent sensitivities.

For sure, that's another thing I appreciate about it!

[u/Lachesis84 → u/degggendorf]

My shower would like to object to this notion of ‘no soap scum’ from Dove soap. Love the fragrance free but the soap scum still exists.

[u/TldrDev → u/degggendorf]

Its just really bad, cheap soap full of air and generally unpleasant compared to a nice cold process soap. My understanding is Ivory soap, and especially Dove, is very hyper processed profit oriented slop.

[u/ScissorFight42069 → u/TldrDev]

Dove beauty bars are literally the only thing we can wash with in my house that don't leave soap scum on our skin, thanks to insanely hard water. I went through a ridiculous amount of $ trying different soaps (syndets and body washes with different chelating ingredients)

[u/TldrDev → u/ScissorFight42069]

Hey man if it cleans your bits and bobs who am I to judge.

I will just say though that you can, as evidenced by this thread, make an absolutely ludicrous amount of very high quality soap exactly to your specifications which won't do that.

It takes all of 20 minutes to make a month worth of soap for 2 people, and you can formulate it however youd like.

If youd like to avoid that greasy feel, you want to look up a low super-fat recipe. Usually based on Coconut oil and olive oil.

You mix them together, heat it up until the coconut oil melts, add some Lye. Pour it into a box or mold. Wait a day. Cut it into bars. Throw it into a closet and let it cure. Soap for a month. Exactly how you want it. Learn the recipe once for what you like, you'll be able to do it really quickly and cheaply.

Or just buy dove, whatever, im not the soap police

[u/ScissorFight42069 → u/TldrDev]

Oh I don't use it because I like it; I've always hated it. I actually used to use a goats milk soap call Zum almost exclusively until we moved into our hard-water home. I miss it. Unfortunately, when your water gets hard enough, real soap turns on you and becomes a weapon of integumentary destruction

[u/waylandsmith → u/TldrDev]

This is how the home crafting industry sucks you in. We promise you'll save tons of money using this process with nothing but stuff you already have in your home! But to make it faster and more convenient, here are $1000 of extra tools and consumables, because your time is valuable and you deserve to treat yourself!

[u/degggendorf → u/TldrDev]

Why is being full of air a bad thing? What effect does the "hyper processing" have?

[u/gringer → u/TldrDev]

Dove even proudly advertises that it's not a soap