This aligns with what I've always been told. The mechanical action of thoroughly washing your hands for 20 seconds + the surfactant in the soap is enough to allow the subsequent rinse and dry to physically remove shit from your hands.
Same with your pits and junk. Just a normal bar of unscented soap is all you need to not be stinky and prevent bacterial growth particularly during the summer. Unless you have special needs based on skin conditions or gland conditions of course.
but i like smelling like pineapples and coconuts
That's something a lot of people seem to miss.
Do I need Ritual of Oudh body scrub after my Summer Rain shower gel and afterwards before going out some Serendipity parfume? Fuck No! Does it help me feel good and I frankly got enough negativity in my life already and need some positive feelings? Yeah!
Better than beef and cheese.
I will never get rid of my beef and cheese ~~flavored~~ scented soap!
The antibacterial soaps also help create supergerms that can survive the antibiotic used. They should only be used in medical settings when necessary. The overuse of antibacterial soaps and antibiotics are going to help create more pandemics should enough bacteria become antibiotic-resistant.
That's very true, but also, the overuse of antibiotics on livestock dwarfs any overuse normal people are doing. We need to make the farmers stop, too.
Is antibacterial soap using antibiotics though? I thought it was just using something like alcohol to kill off bacteria and not an actual antibiotic.
They don't seem to use the same active ingredients as antibiotics, but the concern of bacterial resistance still apples.
"The [FDA] issued a proposed rule in 2013 after some data suggested that long-term exposure to certain active ingredients used in antibacterial products — for example, triclosan (liquid soaps) and triclocarban (bar soaps) — could pose health risks, such as bacterial resistance or hormonal effects. "
There's another web page from the FDA entitled "Antibatcerial Soap? You Can Skip It, Use Plain..." however I can't open the link to see if there's mote talk about bacterial resistance.
There is no such thing as "anti-bacterial soap", on the basis that all soap, by it's very function, is anti-bacterial. Because of this fact any company can add the words "anti-bacterial" on their soap, as it's never technically wrong.
How does soap kill bacteria?
Soap is an emulsifier type chemical. That is to say, soap has molecules that like water and hate oil on one end, and hate water and like oil on the other. The molecule looks kinda like a hairpin, and you cannot have soap without it.
Cell and bacterial walls have a double layer of similar molecules that create a barrier between the inside of the cell and the outside world. The soap molecules attach themselves to the bacteria's walls and then tears them apart.
Your skin is largely protected because it's made of many layers, the top most being made of dead skin cells. But high enough concentrations of soap can cause serious chemical burns, as what the soap does to bacteria it can do to your skin cells. However, very low concentrations of soap is all that's needed to wash yourself.
The difference between regular soap and antibacterial soap is that the antibacterial agent is usually something like triclosan or triclocarban, which is meant to slow the growth of new bacteria.
This gives soap a 1 2 punch as when you wash you kill pretty much 100% of the bacteria, but bacteria is everywhere so you almost immediately start picking more up as soon as you start coming into contact with other surfaces (the shower knob, the door handle, your phone, etc) so the antibacterial agent will help prevent the explosive bacterial growth after you've acquired it.
To be clear, I'm not defending antibacterial soap. In 99% of cases regular soap does exactly what people need. As a regular person, if you're worried about bacterial contamination that much, you shouldn't be using antibacterial soap in place of regular soap when you wash - you should just be washing more often.
I personally do have a very specific benefit that I experience when I use antibacterial soap: it takes longer for me to start smelling after I start sweating. The difference is noticeable for me. Presumably it is noticeable for the people around me as well. I could fix this problem by showering more often, but when I already shower once a day I'm not gonna go grab a quick one after lunch just for the hell of it, especially since excess water use is a problem anyways. Also where the fuck am I gonna find a shower that I'm just free to use at lunch time? So, antibacterial soap, and deodorant, fills that time gap for me.
Thanks for explaining this simply. Somehow I never learned this in school.
You don’t need antibacterial soap at all, if anything it hurts your immune system in the long run.
I've seen less and less anti-bacterial soap available at retail anyway.
Covid probably helped sell a few extra bottles. Now that concern is lessening people want their hands to smell like cinnamon.
I was trying to buy some at target about a month ago and there were only like 2 options that even claimed to be soap. The rest were "hand wash" and all of it was weird generic brands I'd never heard of. I haven't used it yet but I do not feel confident with that purchase at all.
I never stopped to ask what is in " antibacterial" soap that makes it such? Do they straight-up put an antibiotic in it like fucking Neosporin?
Then you've got "hand sanitizer" which is usually just denatured ethanol and some gelling agent.
Anything that can kill living organisms to the guaranteed percentage, isn't not as cut and dry as "alcohol" in hand sanitizer. A lot of them are a based in chlorine.
Not sure. I would have been happy with just a product from a brand I recognized that actually claimed to be soap without weird marketing weasel words.
Fwiw, this has been a thing in medical circles for a while now. I've been out of the field since 2008, and we had switched away from antimicrobial soaps already, even out here in the boonies.
So, no need to worry much about it.
Killing things just so they're dead isn't a good way to live on this planet. There are plenty of reasons to control populations of different species, but only so we can continue living in the society that's been built.
I've been trying to avoid soap labelled antibacterial for this reason, and it's tricky to even find any that's not labelled antibacterial.
Been wondering if they don't just slap the label on any soap, because it could be considered antibacterial by its nature. Apparently not?
I think it's on account of it creating super germs. Correct? Not entirely sure, I guess I could click the link but I am about to hop off and don't need to wander down another rabbit hole.
It's more than that, its been shown to not be any more effective than regular hand washing with non-antibacterial soap, and it has major negative ecosystem impacts. For example, it is hard to filter and fish downstream of AB soap bioaccumulate the AB chemicals to the point of toxicity.
At best it's useless, at worst it contributes to AB resistance, and is toxic to downstream flora and fauna.
Ah, that's a good one. I remember when organic dish soap started coming on to the scene. I am going to take a stab here and say probably for the same thing? I was hoping that it all gets filtered out at a water processing plant. But I am probably just being too optimistic. Thank you for your response =)
We have this weird idea that our body needs constant sterilization. We're a complex biological construct made up of our own genomes, and the genomes of millions of other species of bacteria living in unison. We're pretty self-regulating.
I don't use antibacterial soap of any kind on my hands, and try to avoid hand sanitizer as it dehydrates the hell of my skin. I also don't use body wash unless I have actual dirt and grease to wash off of my body, and I only exfoliate once or twice weekly to keep my skin healthy. My usual shower involves rinsing thoroughly, superficially washing "pits and bits" with unscented baby soap / synthetic detergent (syndet), and then washing and conditioning my hair.
I basically don't have to wear deodorant anymore unless I plan on working out. My body doesn't produce the same kinds of smells anymore. My skin looks awesome, and ingrown hairs and pimples are now a very rare occurrence.
Before, when I used to scrub myself with body wash from head to toe every day, I would find myself smelling like old soup by mid-day if I didn't slather myself in deodorant. These days I smell fresh most of the day deodorant-free, with only the need for a spritz of fragrance at most.
Anyone know if scrubbing with water alone is better or worse than not doing anything? I've occasionally ended up in public bathrooms with no soap and I wonder if I should use water or not.
Better than nothing. Water is a great solvent and will get rid of larger particles. Use hot water to dislodge more oily things.
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