aren’t all the soaps antibacterial? How come some soaps (e.g. Dove) don’t mention anything about its antibacterial properties?
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There are a class of compounds called ‘surfactants’ that have an end of the molecule that dissolves in water while the other end dissolves in oil. Soaps and detergents are two different ways of making surfactants.
Living things also use surfactants to separate the inside of the cell and the outside. These are called phospholipids.
Phospholipids arrange themselves in a layer called the cell membrane. That works in water. If you add another surfactant the phospholipids stop being a layer. Since that layer is like the ‘skin’ of the cell, disrupting the skin kills the cell.
Some cells have structures that makes it so that the soap or detergent can’t disrupt their cell membrane. They aren’t as easily killed by soaps and detergents.
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