ELI5- What is “soap”? We have bar soap, dish soap, antibacterial soap like dial, hand soap, foaming hand soap and more I’m sure. What ties them together to all be called soap?
In: Chemistry
At the core they’re all the same type of chemical, a long fatty molecule on one end with a charged up water-soluble tip.
This gives them the fancy ability to make oil dissolve in water by binding the fat end to oil and the charged end to water.
Then the different brands and uses add other things. Antibacterial soap adds alcohols to kill bacteria, pure soap just moves them around. Hand soap adds moisturizer so it doesn’t mummify your hands. Dish soap is heavy on the soaps and surfactants to make things dissolve in water that don’t want to dissolve in water.
Then a bunch of filler to make them watery or thick or solid or liquid or lavender scented or whatever.
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