Buff City Soap is a popular brand that sells online and at local “Makeries” where consumers can see the soap being made in front of them. The brand’s founders claim to have started the company because they were “frustrated by commercial soaps’ harsh chemicals.”

But is Buff City Soap really a healthier option than drugstore soap? Does it contain any unhealthy ingredients? What was our honest experience purchasing and trying this brand? And are Buff City Soap's non-soap products (laundry detergent, face wash, etc) well-formulated?

In this article we’ll answer all of these questions and more, as we analyze the ingredients in Buff City Soap to give our take on whether or not the brand is healthy.

We'll share our experience trying Buff City Soap, and discuss the healthiness of the brand's non-soap products.

Key takeaways:

• Contains inactive ingredients we consider unhealthy
• We tried Buff City Soap for a month and it caused respiratory irritation
• We do not currently recommend Buff City Soap

Ingredient Analysis

The ingredients in Buff City Island Nectar Soap are shown below:

While some of the ingredients in Buff City Soap are cleansing agents derived from natural compounds like coconut oil and palm oil, this soap contains several inactive ingredients we consider to be unhealthy.

Fragrance is a broad categorical descriptor that fails to identify the specific chemical compounds used in the fragrance.

A medical review of fragranced consumer products published in the Air Quality, Atmosphere & Health journal concluded the following:

“Results of this study provide compelling evidence that everyday fragranced products can impose serious risks to human health, environmental quality, businesses, and society.”

Chromium oxide is an ingredient in some Buff City soaps that we recommend avoiding, because topical chromium is shown in clinical research to cause skin ulcers, severe redness and swelling of the skin in some individuals.

D&C Red No. 7 and D&C Yellow No. 5 are synthetic dyes, and synthetic dyes can have toxic effects in the human body, as we documented in our Native Body Wash reviews article.

Overall, we consider Buff City Soap to be unhealthy, and we do not currently recommend it.

We Tested Buff City Soap

As the author of this article, I wanted to try Buff City Soap myself to share my thoughts on its scent and the overall product experience.

I purchased the Good Morning Sunshine and Narcissist soaps from the brand's online store, because these were best-sellers at the time I visited their site.

Both soaps smell overpowering and come off like "children's soap" to me. The scent profiles are not as subtle as I prefer my soap to be. 

Of the two, I preferred Narcissist, but I'd still only rate it a 4/10 in terms of scent.

The texture and size of the bars is great. Both lasted nearly a month with daily showers, and the ridges allow for convenient and easy lathering, which can be an issue with textureless bar soaps.

After using this soap regularly, I developed itching and irritation in my throat and sinuses. I thought I had actually come down with a sickness which is rare for me, but as soon as making the connection and throwing out the soaps, it resolved within a few days.

It's also worth noting that we were charged over $10 for standard shipping for these two items.

I would not purchase these products again because I don't consider them to be healthy options and they're more expensive than the (fragrance-free) soap I usually purchase.

Overall, I'd rate Buff City Soap 1/10.

Are Other Buff City Soap Products Better?

Here’s our take on other Buff City Soap products.

Buff City Soap Laundry Detergent

Regular version contains fragrance and we recommend avoiding it. 

There is an unscented version available for sale with clean, non-toxic ingredients that we would recommend from a formulation perspective.

Unscented version is healthy.

Buff City Soap Bath Bomb

Contains fragrance and/or coloring agents.

We do not recommend.

Buff City Soap Face Bars

The Rhassoul Clay face bar is the only one we’d recommend, as it has research-backed ingredients and is free of questionable additives.

Rhassoul Clay face bar is healthy.

Buff City Soap Shower Fizzy

We strongly recommend avoiding this product if hot water is used in the shower. It contains ingredients like chromium compounds and fragrance that we do not recommend inhaling via steam.

We do not recommend.

Buff City Soap Pros and Cons

Here are the pros and cons of Buff City Soap in our opinion:

Pros:

• Great texture
• Good value due to the large bar size
• Contains plant-based cleansing ingredients
• Mostly positive online creator reviews
• In-person store experience seems fun

Cons:

• Contains fragrance
• Smells overpoweringly artificial (in our opinion)
• Some soaps contain synthetic dye
• Some soaps contain chromium oxide
• We were charged over $10 for standard shipping

Conclusion

We disagree with Buff City Soap’s claims that their soap is healthier than regular soap, given that many of their soaps contain fragrance and synthetic dye ingredients.

We do not currently recommend any Buff City soaps from a formulation perspective.

The only Buff City products we recommend based on their ingredients are Buff City Soap Rhassoul Clay face bar and Buff City Soap laundry soap.

For the most part, we don't consider this brand to be worth the price. It’s priced as a luxury brand but doesn’t provide luxury formulations in our opinion.

We tried Buff City Soap ourselves and were underwhelmed with the scents, although the product texture was great.

At the time of updating this article, the Buff City Soap website (accessible here) appears to be the only official online retailer of this brand.