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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Soap is a high ph chemical like bleach that will kill/inactivate most types of bacteria and enveloped viruses (which includes flus, most colds, and coronas). Different microbes are vulnerable to different chemicals; for example, low ph chemicals like citric acid work well on most enveloped viruses but not the type of nonenveloped viruses designed to withstand stomach acid. I believe the WHO recommends hydrogen peroxide added to homemade (for impoverished 3rd world areas) alcohol based hand sanitizers for bacterial spores. I like hand sanitizer with CHG as it binds to the hands with washing off from water for 4+hours for residual killing/inactivating activity. Presumably some soaps (and hand sanitizers) add additional chemicals to get their kill ratio up.
Certain metals like silver and copper will kill anything due to their release of ions that perforate microbes.
Hands are porous and have a slightly acidic ph which makes them mildly antimicrobial and, unless you regularly pick your nose, contact transmission of many pathogens wont survive long and are more of a threat via other routes.
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