Eli5: How do soap and water actually kill microbes?

Question

I broadly understand how alcohol-based sanitizers work, but how do simple soap and water do so? Also, how important is the temperature of the water?

In: 5

Answer 1

Soap works in two ways, first it binds to oils in your skin and in dirt and to the water as well, letting you wash it all off as a single complex. Soap’s ability to bind to fats also means that it disrupts the lipophilic (attracted to fats) portion of cell membranes. The result is that soap can literally dissolve the bodies of many microbes.