Irish Spring. Review on Irish Spring Soap

I used to use Irish Spring exclusively in the 1980s. I used to travel a lot and with many late nights out as I was in my 20s. Irish Spring was an excellent choice for those dreaded morning showers after burning the candle at both ends. The scent would wake me up and help my senses come alive. I loved Irish Spring for this. I would switch it once in a while with Coast Original soap.

Irish Spring is an inexpensive brand of soap. You can purchase a big family pack for about the price you pay for a nice bar of handmade cold process soap. If you are on a budget and have normal to oily skin I highly recommend Irish Spring.

However, as time went on with my using this soap it started to really fry my skin. It is extremely drying for those of us with more mature or already dry skin. If you don't mind slathering up with lotion after each and every shower then I guess some people with dry skin still might be able to get by using this product. For me, I could not continue due to my skin issues. I made the switch to cold process soaps made out of olive oil and other luxury oils several years ago.

Irish Spring is made with Tallow(the fat that comes from the kidney on cows). It is not vegan or vegetarian friendly. Tallow isn't known for it's lathering qualities but is extremely cheap to use so the additional coconut oil they use in making soap is quite drying for lathering properties. Any amount of over 20% in a formula will lather profusely but will also be drying to the skin(I now make my own soaps, so I know the properties of which oils do what in soaps)

INGREDIENTS SOAP, SODIUM TALLOWATE, SODIUM COCOATE, SODIUM PALMKERNELATE, WATER, HYDROGENATED TALLOW ACID SKIN CONDITIONER, COCONUTACID, PETROLATUM, GLYCERIN SKIN CONDITIONER, FRAGRANCE, SODIUMCHLORIDE, POLYQUATERNIUM-6, ALOE BARBADENSIS LEAF EXTRACT, PENTASODIUMPENTETATE, TETRADIBUTYL PENTAERYTHRITYL HYDROXYHYDROCINNAMATE, TITANIUMDIOXIDE, CHROMIUM OXIDE GREENS

Lets do a break down of the ingredients shall we?

Sodium Tallowate is soap made from beef tallow kidney fat and sodium hydroxide(a.k.a lye)

Sodium Cocoate is soap made from coconut oil and sodium hydroxide(a.k.a. lye)

Sodium Palm Kernelate is soap made from palm Kernal oil and sodium hydroxide(a.k.a. lye)

Water was added to the lye to mix with the oils/fats to make the soap

Hydrogenated tallow acid skin conditioner is stearic acid. Can be made from palm or beef fat. It is a waxy fatty acid that is super hydrogenated oils by adding hydrogen to oils to make it solid.(think extreme crisco)

Coconut acid, just a fatty acid, added to harden the bar more. Petrolatum is just petroleum jelly(vaseline) which doesn't turn into soap and leaves a little free fat in the bar to not completely strip your skin. Glycerin, is a byproduct of the soapmaking process. Fragrance can be a compound out of thousands of ingredients, sodium chloride is salt, added to harden the bar and sometimes remove glycerine from soap to be sold on a secondary market. After that all the other ingredients like the aloe extract is for label appeal and the other after is all colorants such as "titanium dioxide, and chromium green, etc.)

One day while shopping last fall, I felt nostalgic and purchased 3 bars of Irish Spring. I unwrapped the bar and place it in my shower. The scent filled my bathroom and worked wonderfully as a bathroom deodorant. When I took a shower I could feel my skin tighten immdiately. I had to compensate with a lot of lotion post shower. The bar quickly was removed from the shower and placed in the soap dish next to the bathroom sink. I still have the other 2 bars unwrapped and sitting in the linen closet keeping my linens fresh.

If I had a large family or a man in my household that required a strong smelling deodorant soap, and if they had normal to oily skin this soap would be perfect as it is a budget concious soap too. However, with that said I would not recommend it for people with dry or sensitive skin.