I'm wondering if that slippery feeling is because of the body wash or because of soft water. When I travel I notice a big difference in areas that have very soft water.

NO we don't have soft water. It doesn't feel like that with Dr. Bronner's or our regular bar soap we are using.

I have only experienced the slippery feeling when traveling and showering in heavily softened water. I have heard that people who have hard water have a film of soap that does not rinse off and when they begin using softened water it starts dissolving.

I like Aveeno Skin Relief body wash at this time of year. However, it does leave your skin moisturized.

No need to shout, arkansas girl. I can hear you.

I can only say that I use Dove as recommended by a doctor and I don't get that slippery feeling...but then again, I didn't get it from other body washes either.

Shout? Not sure what you are talking about...not shouting.

I use Suave "Ocean Breeze" and with my hard water have no problem rinsing it off. Nice clean subtle scent, IMO. And it is inexpensive.

Dr Bonner fragrance free!

I've actually used that Suave one before and it was OK and rinsed quickly, I didn't realize they still had that one...may have to just go back to that one.

I guess I was reading the big "no":

NO we don't have soft water.

Usually all caps is read as shouting.

I've been using Kirk's 3 in 1 Head to Toe Original Fresh Scent. (Very little scent & certainly doesn't linger). As well as Suave 'Cucumber Melon'. Moderately hard water.

I've not noticed if they feel slippery but I detest the feeling that a lot of bar soaps can leave. Kinda' like being coated in paraffin. I think that coating is really soap scum, the same stuff in bathtub rings.

I cannot fathom why anyone buys the likes of body wash. How is it better than plain old soap? Body wash is a new must have product that has been marketed for the past decade or so and they have been very successful in making people think that it is valid and even necessary.

These types of products are based on what are called surfactants. You find them in shampoo, detergent and fabric softeners and many "beauty" products. What they amount to are tiny little perfect round spheres that slide and roll , thus creating that "soft" feel on your skin or in your hair or your bath towel, like ball bearings. If you douse your skin or hair with one of these products you are doing nothing but adding a surfactant of these little round balls and you are doing nothing to "nourish" or "rejuvenate" or "invigorate" or "moisturize" anything. It has no ability to affect the actual make up of the hair or the skin. If it really did have the active ingredients to do that it would need a prescription to get it and you would need to use it with care. It can only affect the surface by coating it with these rolling balls. What you eat has a lot more to do with the health and maintenance of healthy skin and hair, not what you put on it.

A rub of oil onto the skin has more benefit as a protective layer.

This body wash business is another successful marketing scheme that has Americans convinced that it is a needed or useful product. That is a fallacy.

All it does is add to the pollution of our waters as all of these little micro balls find their way out into the rivers and oceans of our earth and the highly engineered plastic squirt container that it came in ends up in the landfill. There is also the added cost of shipping heavy liquid around and all the packaging that comes with it.

No one wins here, not your skin or hair or. you or the earth. Only P&G wins, big.

Soap in.a bar has served humanity well for a very long time. Why fix something that is not broken?

if you can't find a body wash that you like maybe it is time to quit looking.

Sometimes when staying with a friend or relative you get into the shower and there is a lineup of various bottles of all manner of chemicals, but no soap. I have taken to carrying my own bar of soap.

Even some of the bar soap is suspect.

Sometimes these surfactants wash off better depending on if your water is hard or soft. But, they dont disappear from the earth. They wash out to the oceans. Just because they go down the drain does not mean that they dont exist anymore. They will be with us for a very long time, longer than anyone of us will live. They get taken up into the food chain and end up affecting life all over the planet.

Surfactants are not composed of little round balls that remain with us forever. I have no idea what you're talking about but it's not surfactants!

I would agree in my experience the slippery feeling comes from the amount your water is softened. Not sure, when one has naturally soft water how that works--we have always, since childhood had a water softener. I have noted at my in-laws they soften to the point of slippery...one can control that. As far as soap choices some cause me to itch something terrible. I have noticed with body washes and French milled I have never had this issue. My mom used ivory and so did I until my 20s when it was too drying. Dove was tried for awhile but that too became a source of itching. As we age we need less SOAP on most of our skin than we do when younger. The drying, which is one source of itching, for sure is an issue especially for older folk in cold climates. I for one am glad the cosmetic companies are ever changing improving their products. Most of the time these new fangled inventions were in response to a real need and cry out from customers.

For the gym, pre-pandemic, back when I used to go to a gym haha, I brought Pantene body wash. I like bar soap for every day bathing.

I like Suave, too. Dove body wash makes my shower floor too slippery!

Right now, though, I’m using a Dove bar. It’s not as slippery as the body wash. There were three bars at my mom’s when she went into the memory care, so I’m just using them up. They sure do last a long time, and my skin feels good. I still put on body lotion afterwards, anyway.

When I use a body wash with softened water I also use a spray bottle of vinegar and water as a final rinse. I find that my skin doesn't maintain a slippery feel to it.

Look at the bottle to see if it states moisturizing or softening. Both mean that there are stuff in them that leaves a surface film on your body. Long ago on one of my camping trips the showers provided cleaning stuff. They did not want you to use anything other than that and had big signs. Since then I sometimes just use whatever shampoo that I have open as a body wash especially in the summer. If you look at men's bath products you will find ones that mention 3 in 1 or total body and hair. I do sometimes use am Olay body moisturizer that you rinse off.

Neutrogena body wash is good. I wish I could use it as it doesn't leave that filmy feeling you mention with our naturally soft water conditions. I find it gets you nice and clean without drying the skin out. However, I am allergic to something Neutrogena puts in their products across the board. It's probably a preservative. Having said that, I do like it and have fond memories of it and look at the half used bottles longingly...I seem to be in the minority with this sensitivity to the brand, so maybe give it a try. The brown gel is a strong scent, so give it a sniff ahead of purchase. The blue and purple bottles have a less strong scent, but still noticeable. fyi

Bar soap for me too. No plastic bottles going into the waste stream and a bar lasts far longer than a bottle of liquid.

I went back to bar soap a couple years ago, I think. Cheaper, less drying. I also quit having to buy Nivea in shower lotion because my skin was always so dry. It is still dry but nearly as much as it was. I also went to bar shampoo and conditioner. Trying to use less plastic in my life. All the bars last so much longer than the those bottles of products too.

I think wednesday morning is confusing surfactants with microbeads.

The differences between soap and body wash is body wash lathers wonderfully in a scrubby vs. soap which does not...and soap leaves a flim which has to be removed all over the shower whereas non-soap body washes do not.

I've used Nivea for quite a while and see no problem. I squeeze it on a puff and it lathers up beautifully. I always buy the extra dry skin one. Haven't used bar soap in years

How is it better than plain old soap?

No soap scum stuck to the shower walls. No chasing a slippery bar of soap around the shower. No cleaning an icky soap dish. I don't mind cleaning up dog barf but I hate cleaning off soap scum.

I started buying liquid shower gels at rummage sales for 10-25 cents a bottle. I'll pay 50 cents if it's a big bottle. The only reason that I have the Kirk's now is because I bought it for my son who has eczema. He left it behind when he moved. When the Kirk's is gone, I'll go back to using out of my rummage sale stash.

I do not have water softener. I use Ivory pump body wash in original. No scent that lingers. When I had my bathroom remodeled, the shower person said to not use bar soap, so I changed to Ivory.

Well. normally my husband and I use bar soap, Dr. Bronner's and my husband also uses a hand made goats milk soap a guy at the craft show makes for him. I also use the liquid Dr. Bronner's scent free baby one. But, sometimes we do like to use a liquid body wash with the scrubby thing to exfoliate. We had one we loved that was a Vitamin Shoppe aloe and almond but they stopped selling it some time ago, it was, of course, perfect. HAHA!

Cilantro, I'm a rummage sale shopper too. I usually see the BBW ones though and am not crazy about those.

I think that we are the odd ones that don't like that slimy feeling, we like a squeaky clean feel. Apparently either people don't even notice it or they actually really like it...to each his own I suppose. We are kind of picky about some things. HA!

The ingredient that gives your skin the slippery soft feel is glycerin I believe. I happen to like it and the soft feel it gives. I do like Aveeno and Dove Body Wash though and use them quite often. Glycerin is also found in many face washes, even very good ones.

I am particularly sensitive to a lot of scents so try to buy one without a lot of scent or no scent if I can find it. That is getting more and more difficult, however.

Bar soap vs body wash is a personal choice like anything else. I prefer body wash as I think it is less harsh, and for all the other reasons mentioned above.

In the winter, I use Bioderma Atoderm cleansing oil for my skin. but only if I've gotten dirty (very rare in winter) or sweaty. I use it sparingly and it usually lasts me two winter seasons. Otherwise, I use goats milk bar soap I buy locally for underarms and such. It is very gentle and not drying at all.

Aveeno for me. Unlike most bar soaps it is possible to buy Aveeno without fragance and no fake scents that will bother my extremely sensitive eyes. We have soft water and I don't have any of that slippery feeling.

For bar soap, i use goats milk soap my sister makes. For body wash,I use Neutrogena body wash. The Body Scrub actually. I don't feel truly clean without them both. However,in the colder,dryer fall and winter months, it will dry my skin out, which I combat with my large hoard of bath and body works lotions. I tried Olay body washes but felt the film you are talking about.....

I used Aveeno Skin relief fragrance free body wash and I liked how it felt on my skin. BUT - it ruined all my washcloths - turned them gray with a black mark in the middle. Poor Jennifer Anniston - she must have to buy new wash cloths all the time - ha!

I like Dove. I am careful to rinse the bottom of the stall on my way out

Micro beads are used in personal beauty products and cleaning products. They are made from poly something-or-the-other.

In the mid decade there was a decision that would have the makers of these phasing out their use and it was taken up as a measure on a world wide scale.

But it did not bring an abrupt end to it.

These are not the break down of plastic in the ocean. That is a different source. These spheres were created to be tiny spheres. They pass through waste water treatments because of their nature and their size where they get taken up into the food chain that starts with the smallest of life and progresses on up, to us.

Perhaps the word 'surfactant" is not the proper term. A surfactant is something that has the ability to affect the surface tension of a liquid. Those are also used. Dishwashing detergent can do that.

P&G, Johnson&johnson, Unilever. all claim that the beads that they add to their personal care and cleaning products get filtered by the waste treatment. but scientists disagree with that.

If the poly micro beads are not reason enough to seriously question the use of these things, think about how a product produces the desired result on the skin or hair, or makes those dishes sparkle right out of the dishwasher. It should make anyone think twice about using them.

It is not just a couple of folks who are using these. Just walk into a store near you and take a look at the gallons of stuff like this on the shelves. Now, multiply that by millions and you will get a picture of a steady stream of these chemicals pouring down the drain in a torrent all over the country at every minute of every hour, every day, every year. That is an immense amount of product traveling out to the ocean or settling into the bottom of a lake! It remains, for a very long time, and most likely also does the container that it was purchased in.

Arkansas, that film that you find it leaves behind has substance to it. You can feel it and touch it and you know it is there because it really is. It is not just a "feeling". It is real. So, what exactly is IT? It does not cease to exist when it washes down the drain. It is made from something that has a presence. It sinks to the lowest levels in the earth where it bubbles back up to us through the food chain.

Who knew that what we do in the privacy of our shower could have such an effect on the earth? Most of us do not think it through to that end. But, we really should think about it a bit more, a lot more!

Arkansas Girl, I avoid BBW's stuff, too. I've had only a couple of their products & have had an allergic reaction (skin) to both of them. I chuckle & generally avoid products that claim: Not tested on animals. I'm like, 'Oh YES you are. You skipped third stage trials & jumped directly to market & left the testing to the human animal.' Cruelty Free--'Oh, yeah, what do you call these welts & itchy bumps on my skin that your product caused? Love strokes?'

I have to avoid their stores--the fragrance knock down. Was in one in November with a friend who was doing some Christmas shopping. Within 5 minutes, I had screaming sinuses & a headache about to explode. I can't imagine how BBW store clerks can manage a whole shift inside a store. Fortunately, the store was in an outdoor mall; I was able to duck outside and wait for my friend to finish her shopping.

I use bar soap with a bath pouf/exfoliator. Just give the pouf a few swipes of the bar, and you will have a lovely lather, and the exfoliation you desire. So many lovely bar soaps out there now :)

i like Jason brand body wash. lots of scents, clean and not overpowering. no parabens and yucky stuff.

still use bar for DH, mostly Dove.