When people say ‘soap’ they often are referring to ‘detergents’. There is a very important difference. Most liquid soaps are detergents and their strengths vary greatly. I am a trained soapmaker and sometime cosmetics formulator and it would devastate me if a product I made irritated someone’s skin or ‘lady bits’. The soap I make is bar soap and I can control the cleaning power and additives.
If you are experiencing irritation from using soap down on your lady parts (but you certainly are not using soap in a douche-type situation, right?) you want to look for a few things on the ingredients list of your liquid shower gel. (I refuse to call it soap.) Look for the second ingredient to be an oil of some sort, like sunflower or almond oil. This is going to cut down the stripping/cleaning effect those cleaners have. If you can, find something made from Ammonium Laurel Sulfate instead of Sodium Laurel (or Laureth more likely) Sulfate. If AT ALL possible, look for a REAL liquid soap alternative that is cloudy. The first ingredient will read something like ‘potassium cocoate’ (which is saponified coconut oil in liquid form). It will be ‘potassium something’ if it is a true liquid soap. If it is really clear, that means there are no unsaponified fats left in the soap and that can be a bit harsh. I prefer a liquid soap to be a but cloudy because that means more gentle.
Some good advice I found after a quick search:
Be gentle! Aggressive scrubbing could damage sensitive tissues of the vagina.
Use minimal soap and be careful to avoid getting soap inside the vagina.
Wash the buttocks and anal area last to avoid cross contamination. Anal bacteria reaching the vagina (by piggy-backing on a wash cloth or fingers) can cause serious discomfort and/or infection.
If you want, I can put you in touch with a soap maker near where you live. They often have a very mild baby type soap with no fragrance and extra oils to make it very gentle and it is usually olive oil based to make it even more skin friendly.