What's this soap good for?

We get this question frequently.   Soap cleans.   While we do choose oils and ingredients with purpose and intent to create a long-lasting quality soap that isn't overly stripping, all it does is clean. 
In the U.S., we legally cannot tell you the soap or its ingredients do anything such as treat acne, rejuvenate cells, or lighten skin.  Those are medical/drug claims. Ethically and morally, we feel that's best too.  We would never want to offer false hope that any of those things will happen from using soap. 
​Last year we made several posts on our Facebook page in regards to why we don't make any claims on our soaps, and here are the graphics and texts from those posts. 

Frequently we have consumers ask us what our soap is good for. Well, soap is good for getting you clean. No, I’m not trying to make a joke. That is the ONLY claim we can make on our products without pushing into another category such as cosmetics or medicines.
While making cosmetic claims is very achievable with proper labeling and good manufacturing practices, making medical claims is not. We will not make claims on our products that we cannot stand behind.
[Source:https://www.fda.gov/.../it-cosmetic-drug-or-both-or-it-soap]

[The FDA does not approve tea tree oil as an antibacterial agent. We are not implying tea tree oil actually has antibacterial properties. We only used it as an example of what cannot be said legally about the ingredients in soap.] 
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We don’t just follow regulations for drug and cosmetic claims because the FDA tells us to do so. We also believe it’s the right thing to do.
We have consumers who will lean toward certain soaps due to the properties of the essential oils in the soaps. We’ve heard on more than one occasion that tea tree oil is good for eczema and psoriasis. For me personally, essential oils can make my eczema worse, and it can be quite painful, but I have heard others swear by essential oils for similar conditions. What is good for one person may not be good for another. We would feel bad about potentially offering false hope for someone when it could in fact make it worse for them.
For J & W Soaps, when we make soaps with essential oils or other natural ingredients, we only claim that the natural ingredients can provide scent, color, or texture for the soap.
[Fun fact that is slightly off topic: Using natural ingredients for color often limits us to making only cleansing claims and limits us from making cosmetic claims, because cosmetics must be colored with FDA-approved colorants, and many natural colors are not FDA-approved. Source: https://www.fda.gov/.../color-additives-permitted-use...]
[Source for drug and cosmetic claims: https://www.fda.gov/.../it-cosmetic-drug-or-both-or-it-soap] ​

One of my friends actually said that it sounds ludicrous for someone to make any of the claims in this graphic about soaps. However, when someone is desperate enough for help after exhausting other possibilities, they might believe ludicrous statements.
I actually have seen soaps that people claim will fix everything from infections to hormonal issues. All soap does is clean. If you happen to experience other side effects then that’s just icing on the cake. However, it’s not something that happens consistently from one person to another, and it is not something we will ever claim on our products.
[Source: https://www.fda.gov/.../it-cosmetic-drug-or-both-or-it-soap]

[https://www.fda.gov/.../2020-warning-letters-health-fraud] ​

We hope that you feel better about how we speak about our products. It’s not that we don’t want to talk about the benefits of the soap or the high-quality ingredients we use, but we understand not everyone will have the same experience, and we don’t want to mislead anyone. Different ingredients can bring different properties to the soap in terms of longevity, type of lather, etc. Also, we use a wide range of goodies in our products (milks, oils, butters, clays, etc.), but ultimately soap is only intended for cleaning.
We have many regular customers and supporters who love our products without us having to make any claims on our soaps, and we thank you from the bottom of our hearts. Thank you for allowing us to be transparent with you, thank you for letting us share something we love with you, and thank you for your support in our small business. Y’all are amazing.

[Source: https://www.fda.gov/.../it-cosmetic-drug-or-both-or-it-soap]