Thank you for the advice and information. At the moment I am using an emolient instead of soap and Aveeno twice daily. In places the skin feels so tight that it makes me think it might split. Not pleasant.
I won't ask the precise problem since you haven't mentioned it, I guess there is reason not to(!), but re tightening of skin, I've noticed that very dramatically on the back of my hands in the last few months.
When slack, they look much more wrinkly than before, but when I close my hands, the skin can sometimes look shiny, like a balloon, and feels very tight.
I've noticed I can even feel the tightening sometimes about an hour after food.
I still haven't worked out the cause. I don't think it's related to high bg as I've checked that. If anything I have a feeling it might be a slight allergy or bad reaction to food that I now eat a lot more of. Nuts came to mind, but it's just a wild guess.
An interesting possibility is that emolients are the problem. A while ago, I noticed cracking skin on the back of my hands, so I started using Dermol cream. I'm pretty sure that it's only after that, that I noticed the tightness / shiny-ness.