So I’ve seen quite a lot on the internet recently (past one or two years), videos of people abandoning different forms of soap for different situations, but usually for the purpose of “restoring the body’s natural microbiome.” In many of their anecdotal claims, they’ll say things like “it cured my dandruff” or, “I don’t have psoriasis anymore”, and so on, and how their bodies come about a homeostasis of some sort. I tried it out, and while my skin cleared up, my dandruff slowly became worse over time.
I’ve also read (just now) a lot of posts here describing both the prevalence of lice in the B.C.-1700s until regular shampooing became a thing, and how soaps generally remove bacteria through mechanical means rather than outright kill them.
So I’m hoping for more than one explanation here:
• Is anti-bacterial soap a marketing myth, and “organic” soaps are just fine despite not being “anti-bacterial” because the mechanics are the same?
• Is body soap/bar soap necessary if you’re rinsing/showering with hot water daily and washing hands with soap? If so, how can I determine an appropriate washing/soaping frequency for maintaining effective hygiene for *all* parts of the body, genitals and rectum included without harming my skin?
• Does soap affect larger particles of fecal matter the same way that it affects microscopic organisms (mechanically sticking to both lipid and water and carrying away due to surface tension of water), or does it sanitize the fecal matter and some of it remains left behind or something else entirely?
• Bar soaps harbor lots of bacteria, but so does my skin and body hair, so to use or not to use?
In: Biology
– You don’t need anti-bacterial soap for everyday usage. Most of the hygiene usefulness of soap outside of a healthcare environment comes from the removal of gross soils (in which significant bacterial colonies will be a part.)
– You don’t have to scrub the non-smelly parts of your body every day (well, except your hands, of course…those need regular cleaning.) You can regard the rest of your body as an as-needed scrub. There’s not a medical reason to soap off your arms or back daily, for example.
– You don’t wash your ass to sanitize it; that’s impossible. The pores of the skin there should be regarded as completely saturated with nasty bacteria. Fecal matter is removed mechanically with soap, just like other grime.
– You don’t need to worry about bacteria on a soap bar. One of the things soap does is hold grime in suspension so it’s easy to rinse away. The same applies to bacteria that are hanging out… goes down the drain with the rest of the suds.
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