As pure soaps go, Dr Bronner's is great - and I use it from time to time, but not on my face. It seems to cut through grease like nothing else I've used (apart from dish soap!). For example, I often moisturise with baby oil after a shower, and I only need a tiny drop of Dr Bronner's to lather up my hands and wash away the eI washed my hair with it once, and my hair felt like straw, it seemed to strip all the oils out and I had to use a really intensive conditioner on it afterwards.

Ooops, poor editing there. I meant to say "and wash away the excess oil. I washed ..."

Reading the answers in that thread, please don't use coconut oil. People who do stink of coconut. I'm allergic to it and it literally takes my breath away when someone who's slathered themself in coconut oil walks past me.

Echoing Senyar's thoughts. Dr. Bronner's has its place, and not as a skin/body/hair cleanser. Yes, it WILL wash your face, but it is far too strong to be used as a daily cleanser.

As far as other widely-toted products that should be avoided, I couldn't think of any personally, but my husband says Bose speakers are bunk and not worth the hype.

Oh, Dr Bronner's and Kirk's Castille are still the best for general washing and showering. Don't believe the hype. I've never understood all this mositurizing business anyway, unless showering too often is an issue, which I suppose is necessary if you work in a coal-mine or such.
:-)

Kirk's and Bronner's don't contain animal fat, either, unlike most other soaps. Vegan or not, who wants to put animal fat on your skin? This is 2012, we're not frontiersmen (and -women) boiling our own soap out of lard or Eskimos making soap and lamp oil out of whale blubber. One of the things that sets humans apart is our ability to adapt and evolve... if you don't buy into what the corporations sell you.

I think Nike shoes, Ludwig drums, Diamondback mountain bikes, and many other trendy brands are all overrated, and most companies like these have begun capitalizing on their famous names, producing lower-quality, lower-priced goods for the trend-ars who don't really know quality, while reserving the good stuff for people willing to shell out (or celebrities who get free goods in exchange for endorsements). Dickies jeans used to last FOREVER under DURESS, too, and now you can go to Walmart (or, in the past, K-Mart) and buy cheap shit Dickies that last 6 months or less with modest, regular use, or you can go to a tractor- or farm-type store and shell out for some real work clothes, be they Dickies or Carhardt or whatever.

Dr. Bronner's dries out my skin horribly terribly and makes it red/crack with one use. I've never understood the appeal or the wide-ranging support of it.

I tried Dr. B on my hair some time back and found that my resulting hair texture alternated between waxy strands and straw, although rinsing with diluted vinegar helped.

If you have relatively robust skin, it should be fine for body washing. Most people probably couldn't use it on their faces. Some people with very thick hair may do well with it as a shampoo, with rinse, but those us with fine/oily hair won't tolerate it.

This seems like blaming a hammer for not being a screwdriver.

Yeah, it's great as soap but there are much better facial soaps if you'd like the skin on your face to stay supple and not get all red and chapped in the winter which was the OPs main question.

Part of the problem is that people use too much of the liquid soap. DILUTE! DILUTE! Long ago I used the concentrated peppermint liquid, which felt like it could strip paint.

In recent years I've been happy with their bar soap.

Arsenic is all-natural, too.

Coconut oil (which I occasionally use to condition my hair) smells like nothing. I was pretty disappointed actually.

Dilute! Dilute! is right. It is strong. But it is my basic shower-all-over soap. It does clean like nobody's business and I love the smell. However, it does strip oil from your skin, and I find it important to moisturize, especially the face but my legs usually too, after showering because of that. If I had really prone-to-dryness skin I probably would want a milder soap that didn't remove all the oils.

Huh, I have sensitive skin so I guess I'll look for another green soap to try.

Evidently Kirk's Castille is now recently scented (lavender?) I can't believe that. It used to be more hypoallergenic than Purpose*, which I really don't like. I'm sensitive as heck to perfumes, chemicals, etc., although some completely natural odors don't bother me. I've been breaking out for a couple weeks since Kirk's switched, so now I'm back on Bronner's (hemp/citrus version) at 3 or 4 times the cost -- maybe not really purposely scented but lots of odor, but it doesn't affect me.

IndigoRain, I'm thinking of trying Kiss My Face's new soaps. Giant Eagle in the States is trying to compare/compete with Whole Foods and most GEs carry tons of them right now, more than WF. They're as green as a company can be, no animal products or animal testing either ("Leaping Bunny" certified!) In fact, I might even try their "Stress" body wash with pine and ginseng. I can't get enough of the scent of real pine, and I have a feeling their soaps don't have any of the chemical stuff that makes me break out.

*Scary true story: Purpose definitely has animal fat in it, and I once bought a bar that must have got a double-dose when the production line stopped and restarted or something: It was during the summer, the soap smelled funky, and two flies that got in the house were attracted to it, landed in it, got stuck and died there. I'm assuming it was the animal fat. Pretty disgusting.