Commercial soap is vat dried, which strips out the glycerine. I air-dry every Rose Best bar for a month so it keeps the glycerine your skin needs.
When a batch of soap comes out of the mold, it is not ready to sell. It sits on a rack in my shop for a full month before it touches a shelf. People ask me why I wait so long, so here is the honest answer.
Cold process soap is made by combining plant oils with lye. The two react and turn into soap and glycerine. No lye remains when the reaction is done. What remains is a bar full of glycerine, and glycerine is the whole point. It is a humectant, which means it pulls moisture from the air toward your skin. It is the reason a good bar of soap can clean you without leaving your skin tight.
Commercial soap companies vat dry their soap to speed things up, and that process removes the glycerine. Many of them then sell that glycerine to lotion companies. So the soap dries your skin out, and the lotion you buy to fix it contains the ingredient that was taken out of your soap. I would rather leave it in the bar.
Air drying, which soap makers call curing, does two things. The water slowly evaporates, so the bar gets harder and lasts longer in your shower. And the bar gets milder as it sits. A fresh bar and a cured bar are different products. The cured one is the one I am willing to put my name on.
Every Rose Best bar is made in a small batch here in Farmington, Michigan, with oils like coconut, olive, rice bran, and sunflower, plus shea and cocoa butter. Then it waits its month on the rack.
If your skin feels tight after you shower, your soap is probably the reason. Try one of ours and see what a difference the glycerine makes. https://rosebest.com/collections/cold-processed-soap)