How we do it: Natural Beauty Bars

Posted on Aug 04, 2011

Posted by Jen Lafrance, Tom’s of Maine Senior Scientist

Here at Tom’s of Maine we always felt we had great soap products. A couple of years ago we decided to upgrade our line to include additional benefits for our consumers. This initiative led to the development of our new natural beauty bars.

Soap can sometimes be perceived as drying and damaging to skin so we were very mindful of this during our development process. Our natural beauty bars are carefully formulated to be mild and to maintain skin’s natural moisture. Our soap is manufactured through the saponification of palm, palm kernel, and coconut oils, chosen for their foaming properties and mildness. We already knew that glycerin is a by-product of this saponification, and while glycerin is an effective skin moisturizer, we wanted to do more.

Olive oil and jojoba oil were included in the base formula because they are conditioning and moisturizing for the skin; they create a barrier on the skin holding the skin’s natural moisture inside. Other natural plant oils can function in the same way, but can have an inherent heavy feeling or odor that makes them less appealing. Vitamin E acetate was also included in our natural beauty bars as a well-known skin conditioning ingredient and anti-oxidant.

We felt we had done a good job with our product development and decided to run clinical tests to prove it. We found out through this clinical testing that our natural beauty bars are “clinically proven to maintain skin’s moisture.” The participants in these studies had their skin washed with our natural soap products (a water control site was included) and scans were done with laboratory instruments that measure the skin’s surface hydration and barrier damage. The natural ingredients in our beauty bars were found to maintain and retain skin’s natural moisture, cleaning and maintaining the skin’s natural protective barrier.

Additional benefits our new beauty bars include dermatologist testing to prove that our formulas are mild and safe for use on sensitive skin. Our Deodorant beauty bar provides long lasting deodorancy, and our Gentle Exfoliating beauty bar exfoliates. Both of these claims are made possible with natural ingredients and are substantiated by clinical testing as well. Our Relaxing bar relaxes your senses and our Energizing bar invigorates your senses with 100% natural fragrance, too.

You can read more about all the benefits and choices here. Which Tom’s of Maine natural beauty bar sounds right for you?