Which liquid soap to choose for children's hands?

Hand hygiene is essential these days. Washing hands thoroughly with organic soap, natural soap, Marseille soap, or a cleansing gel... Indeed, choosing the right hygiene product for washing children's hands is not an easy task. How to choose the right product? To effectively cleanse their sensitive and fragile hand skin, while being effective against bacteria, viruses and dirt. LiLiKiWi gives you advice in this blog post to help you see things more clearly and choose the best.

Children's skin is more fragile than adults' and frequent hand washing with inappropriate products can damage it.

In case of pandemics or epidemics encountered in community living (school, daycare...), the recommended frequency of hand washing is higher.

However, children's skin may develop redness, chapping on the back of the hands or between the fingers. Your children may also experience very uncomfortable stinging and itching.

Therefore, it is necessary to choose a product that is gentle on children's skin, safe for their health but also effective against bacteria and viruses, and good for the planet.

That's a lot of conditions to meet, how do you find your way?

Avoid using an alkaline product

Firstly, "real soaps" such as Marseille soap or solid Aleppo soap are 100% natural, obtained through a green chemical reaction from saponification between vegetable oils and a very strong alkaline agent (soda for solid soaps and potash for liquid soaps). The most commonly used vegetable oils in France are: olive oil for Marseille soap and laurel oil for Aleppo soap.

Like all cleansing products, soap removes grease and dirt from the skin because it contains surfactants. Surfactants (SAs) have a molecular structure that acts as a bridge between water and dirt that won't come off with water. The SAs in soaps are Sodium/Potassium Olivate (in solid/liquid Marseille soaps) and Sodium Laurate (in Aleppo soaps).

However, they belong to a family of SAs that are very aggressive and stripping for sensitive and fragile skin: anionic SAs.

Therefore, soaps are very strong detergents and perfect for household cleaning, but they are not suitable for hand and body hygiene for our children. As early as the 1960s, scientists revealed that soap was not an ideal product for washing our children (1). Indeed, frequent use of soaps is responsible for dermatitis, redness and itching, not only because of the aggressive SAs they contain but also because of the pH of natural soaps. You may not know it but the skin does not have a neutral pH (i.e., a pH of 7); it is actually slightly acidic (pH of 5). It is this acid mantle that maintains the skin's balance.

It provides a positive environment for good microbes and prevents bad microbes from settling and spreading on our skin. Natural soaps are very alkaline (pH between 8 and 10) and can disrupt the skin's balance. This can lead to many discomforts and skin conditions such as psoriasis, Verneuil's disease, and/or atopic dermatitis.

Avoid products containing Sulfate, even in organic products

Surfactants from the sulfate family have long been used in hygiene products due to their foaming ability and low cost. The best known is Sodium Lauryl Sulfate (SLS). In laboratories, SLS is known to cause irritation. 0.2% of SLS alone is enough to irritate a child's skin. In children's hygiene products found in supermarkets, SLS or its derivative Sodium Laureth Sulfate (SLES) are often found, which is relatively gentle but still aggressive for our children's fragile skin. Moreover, SLES is produced through a highly polluting chemical process.

Did you know that even in certified organic products, you can't escape sulfates? Indeed, there are 3 sulfate components authorized in certified organic products: the famous SLS, Ammonium Lauryl Sulfate (ALS), and Sodium Coco Sulfate. While the manufacturing process for these three compounds comes from natural chemistry, it doesn't change the fact that they are still very irritating to our children's skin. Next time you see the word "sulfate" on the label of a child's care product, run away!

Opt for a product rich in glycerin

Glycerol, better known as glycerin, is naturally present in our body and represents an energy source for our organism.

Glycerin is obtained after saponification, i.e., the manufacture of soap. And glycerins can be of animal, petroleum, or vegetable origin. A "superfatted" soap naturally contains glycerin (about 8%). The presence of glycerin could mitigate the harshness of soaps.

Glycerin can hold several times its weight in water, making it an essential moisturizing active ingredient. Its role is to attract water from the high humidity area to the lower humidity area. In short, it attracts tap water to the skin.

The properties of glycerin smooth and soften the skin, improve its elasticity, and normalize desquamation. It is the perfect ally for the skin, which, combined with the superfatting of our products, constitutes the ultimate protection for our little ones' skin.