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Using just any old soap can dry out your skin and leave you feeling itchy, especially if your skin easily irritates. Dove soap, a product of Unilever, may be an answer. If your skin is as vulnerable as a baby’s bottom, the sensitive skin, unscented beauty bar made by Dove may help you. Fragrances can make you sniffle and sneeze, trigger respiratory reactions, may contribute to cancer or nervous system problems and can cause breakouts – not desirable features in a bar that is supposed to make your skin look its best. Not all of Dove’s beauty bars are free of fragrance, however.
Products
Dove produces eight types of beauty bar, including a summer care, winter care, gentle exfoliating and nourishing care with shea butter. The classic white beauty bar and pink beauty bar are labeled as offering the mildest cleansing formulas, but still contain fragrance. “Mild” on the label can still feel like sandpaper on vulnerable skin. The only bar labeled as “unscented” is the Sensitive Skin, Unscented bar.
Claims
You know what the commercials say: Dove contains one-quarter moisturizing cream and boasts a mild cleansing formula that can leave your skin “clean, soft and smooth.” Dove claims that most commercial soaps strip your skin of its natural moisture and can leave you feeling “dry and tight.” The sensitive skin, unscented bar makes these same claims, but the label also declares that it is fragrance-free, hypoallergenic and unscented.
Concerns
You would think if a label says “fragrance-free” or “unscented,” it is indeed free of all smells. When it comes down to it, the onus is on the company to be true to its word. The Food and Drug Administration does not regulate products to verify claims that they are unscented or fragrance-free. Some fragrance-free products still include trace amounts of chemicals to mask the natural odors of the product. Fragrance-free or unscented soaps may still have an odor that comes from the packaging or from the actual ingredients that make up the soap – even if no other fragrances were added. Dove soap is one of the products that honors its claims and is truly unscented.
Expert Recommendations
Dr. William Sears recommends unscented Dove for babies with eczema. Dove -- and surely they wouldn’t lie -- claims on its website that the sensitive skin, unscented bar is the number 1 cleansing bar recommended by dermatologists. You may want to conduct your own survey – or at least ask your doc – before believing everything you read, however – especially on a product website.
