Can a soap be dirty? In a sense that there are still some bacteria living on it.
In: Chemistry
https://slate.com/news-and-politics/2007/01/is-soap-self-cleaning-because-it-s-soap.html
*How clean is bar soap in a public bathroom? Is it “self-cleaning,” since it’s soap? It seems like a health hazard to me.*
>It’s dirty, but that doesn’t make it a health hazard. Soap can indeed become contaminated with microorganisms, whether it’s in liquid or bar form. According to a series of tests conducted in the early 1980s, bars of soap are often covered with bacteria and carry a higher load than you’d find inside a liquid dispenser. But no one knows for sure whether this dirty soap will actually transfer its germs to your hands during a wash.
> In fact, what little clinical evidence there is suggests that dirty soap isn’t so bad. A study from 1965 and another from 1988 used similar methodologies: Researchers coated bars of soap in the lab with E. coli and other nasty bacteria, and then gave them to test subjects for a vigorous hand-wash. Both teams found no transfer of contamination from the dirty soap. However, both studies were tainted by potential conflicts of interest: The first was conducted by Procter & Gamble, and the second came from the Dial Corp.
>Still, there’s no good evidence to contradict these studies, and it’s likely that the bacteria on a dirty bar would just wash off when you rinsed your hands. In other words, you’d be cleaning the soap as you cleaned your hands. (Your hands would probably have been a lot dirtier than the soap to begin with.)
Latest Answers