Standing room only.
— Soft Services newsletter
Annie’s shower routine inside.
Soft Services Annie’s shower routine inside. This is your cofounder speaking, as usual (I do our copy). Though today I’m trying something new: a first-person, long-form, somewhat rambling description of my shower routine. I promise this isn’t just a thinly-veiled attempt to push Soft Services products on you, with an editorialized slant to understand if this new type of content resonates with our email audience. In fact, I don’t always use Soft Services products.
We don’t even make many of the daily essentials I so desperately need, like deodorant rife with aluminum and fizzing denture cleaning tablets (for my retainers). I hope you agree that the founder of a business should have intimate knowledge of the products they shill—always able to see things from the customer’s perspective, stress-testing the finished goods from batch to batch as a constant source of quality assurance.
Selfishly, I needed these products and nobody made them. So, Soft Services did: a founder’s tale as old as time… And now, join me for this very intimate look at the most important part of my job: taking showers. ” Pre-production is key to an efficient, effective shower experience. While I wait for the water to heat, a clean, hyper-absorbent towel must be set next to the tub ( Restoration Hardware Heathered Cotton Linen Reversible Towels are what I use).
Hair gets de-knotted by brushing my mixed-bristle Mason Pearson from ends to roots, and then this is when I would swap in a fresh razor blade once a month. If taking an evening shower, I begin taking makeup off of dry skin with an oil-based remover and a glob of Milky Jelly, and then step into the shower to rinse my face clean with warm water as a very first step. Something about showering in makeup feels very wrong to me. Next, scalp cleanse.
To say I “shampoo” my hair is probably overkill, because around age 31 I learned that the less hair products I use, the fewer breakouts I experience on my body and sides of my face. I’ve recently taken the anti-acne hair product theme a step further and started using T-Sal shampoo —I just concentrate on massaging at the oily parts of my roots, but otherwise do not lather through the lengths or ends of my hair before rinsing.
That’s it, no conditioner (except for special occasions…as a treat). Either way, I tie my hair up and out of the way with one of those incredibly ugly and effective telephone cord hair ties for the rest of my shower. Now I have the perfect canvas for the most imperfect product: Clearing Clay . Yes, it smells like sulfur.
So, to people that hate how sulfur smells, heed this warning—and to people that want clear skin, celebrate the good news: literally 10% of what’s inside the bottle is actual sulfur. This is the maximum amount allowed in an acne product, though sulfur has long been used for other skin concerns including rosacea, dandruff, and tinea versicolor . Clearing Clay can be used as a 10-minute body mask, which I’ll do if I am seeing multiple breakouts and the skin feels quite oily.
I normally just wash on a generous glob in the shower, spreading over my back, shoulders, and chest. Taking an extra 10-20 seconds to massage it onto skin allows the sulfur more time to absorb into skin before rinsing, so I’m making sure to get the most efficacy out of the formula with each use.
Clearing Clay is the quickest-acting body breakout product I have ever used, it doesn’t bleach fabric, and it exfoliates…I feel the same about people who hate sulfur as I do about people who hate cilantro: pity. Comfort Cleanse is next, as a body wash. Let’s consider today a non-shaving day, otherwise I would have shaved my legs earlier on in the shower using a thin coat of Comfort Cleanse, as we’ve suggested in previous emails.
I’m of the opinion that, since skin swells slightly in warm water, you want to shave before it becomes too “puffed,” so you’re able to shave furthest down the hair shaft. Swelling from manual friction is also why I don’t use Buffing Bar on days I shave. I do a full-body polish with Buffing Bar from ankles to shoulders once a week, and other days I’ll concentrate on areas where I can feel coarse hair start to surface, like my bikini line, lower legs, and underarms.
The biggest chore in the tub is foot exfoliation. I recently discovered a coarse glass file from my local CVS that is not only strong enough for the calluses on my toes and heels, but is easy to disinfect after each use. The hard part is the core strength needed to balance on either foot for the time it takes me to scrub through any white, dead skin clinging around the edges of my toenails. I’m particular about not having foot barnacles or debris.
I use the T-Sal shampoo to lather my feet clean and prevent any fungal imbalances. Also: once a week, I take advantage of my shower-softened toenail cuticles and rub them off with a stone filing stick . Speaking of fungal imbalances: Clearing Mist . It’s another salicylic acid product and though it’s for the treatment of acne, I spritz my toes with it, along with my back, butt, and chest to kill microbes in general.
If I shaved, I immediately smooth Smoothing Solution onto my legs as an aftershave. It instantly makes my skin feel more comfortable while I comb through my wet hair to style it in a clean center part, tucked behind my ears to dry—my way of “wet-setting” my hair since I do not use any hair products. Now, to moisturize.
I’m team Carea Cream —applying urea daily doesn’t allow my skin to harden as it turns over, so KP bumps that once covered the backsides of my arms and hips are now completely cleared. Youth Dew Roll-On Deodorant by Estee Lauder is my somewhat guilty body care essential.
” After several allergic reactions, coconut oil-stained pit seams on all my white shirts, and woefully ineffective odor and sweat coverage, I’ve completed my journey with “natural” deos and have been in a fully committed relationship with Youth Dew for four years now. I even roll it under and between my boobs if it’s a hot-weather-tight-top-type of day. Antiperspirant: not just for underarms.
It may come as a surprise to know, as a purveyor of a completely fragrance-free line of products, that I’m a huge fan of things that smell great. Right now I’m in my DS Durga Debaser period—all my memories of this time in my life will be tied to top notes of bergamot and green pears, fig and iris at the middle, and base notes of tonka bean and wet wood. I hope nothing bad happens that I’ll want to forget, I really like this fragrance!
This gets sprayed on my neck and once on each of my inner elbows. Warm regards, Annie To see the live-action remake of this email, click to view the reel. Clearing Clay Multi-Use Breakout Treatment $28 Comfort Cleanse Ultra Soothing Shower Gel $32 Buffing Bar Microcrystal Exfoliant $28 Clearing Mist Medicated Breakout Tonic $26 Smoothing Solution Calming Gel Exfoliant $34 Carea Cream Daily Toning Lotion $40
Tags: Community, Routine, Body Acne, Dry Skin, Ingrown Hair, Keratosis Pilaris, Tinea Versicolor, Clearing Mist, Comfort Cleanse, Buffing Bar — Original, Smoothing Solution, Carea Cream