If all soap isn’t antibacterial, what is the purpose of the natural/cute soaps we use to wash our hands? And do the natural soaps actually clean bacteria?
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I’m under the impression that soaps, in addition to any damage they might cause to bacteria directly, basically make your hands so slick that germs cannot cling. You literally rinse them off.
Anti bacterial soap isn’t actually all that good for you or the environment outside of specific situations like being in a hospital.
Normal soap is extremely good at washing away dirt and lipids (fats) that most bacteria and viruses live in. So even though soap doesn’t kill them it washes them away.
Anti bacterial soap does kill viruses and bacteria, but the active ingredients in a lot of anti bacterial soap isn’t exactly good for you. This is still a target of active research, but constant exposure to those kinds of chemicals has been shown to potentially cause hormonal problems. They also kill *good* bacteria that lives in your body.
You also have to consider what happens when you flush them down the drain. These soaps kill bacteria in water treatment facilities and sewers that break down waste.
The same is true for hand sanitizer. Hand sanitizer is meant to be used when soap isn’t available, it actually isn’t as effective as soap and water for washing your hands and getting rid of germs. The problem is the alcohol kills bacteria and viruses but leaves the living ones and the waste on your hands, while soap washes it all away.
Unfortunately we see ‘anti-bacterial’ on a label and tend to assume that means it’s better when it actually isn’t. When it comes to consumers it’s mostly just marketing.
Antibacterial soap is useful in situations where you really need to kill germs like in a hospital.
Normal soap does work but in a different way than antibacterial soap.
Antibacterial soap destroys the cell wall of the bacteria, ripping them apart and killing them in the process.
Normal soap just assists with mechanical removal, as in they get physically moved off your hands into the water and down into the drain.
Without soap at all they can cling to your hands.
Why aren’t all soaps antibac?
Because of cost and comfort. Antibac soaps are generally more expensive & damage your skin. If you use them all the time you might develop skin conditions on your hands or at the very least just get very dry irritated skin there.
All soap achieves two things – it cleans the surface and removes dirt/bacteria etc and washes them away. The chemistry of soap is also kind of ‘spiky’ compared to bacteria being sort of like balloons. The soap spikes will pop a good number of bacteria balloons, killing them. So in that sense all soap is “antibacterial” and a really thorough washing with regular old soap is a fantastic way to sanitize your hands as thoroughly as even surgeons going wrist deep into an open wound would require.
Antibacterial soaps have ingredients that will more thoroughly kill the bacteria but that requires enough washing and scrubbing that just using regular hand soap would have achieved the majority of that anyway.
The long and short of it is a short hand wash with any soap isn’t great. A solid hand wash with regular soap is pretty much golden and a solid hand wash with antibacterial soap is either just as golden or possibly overkill.
One concern you should have is all hand washing will remove natural oils and protective layers from your skin. Over zealous hand washing or using hand sanitizer can damage your skin and create *faster and easier* routes for infection to get through.
There’s not much point in soap being anti-bacterial. When you use soap to wash your hands, the main action of the soap is supposed to be that it washes all the things you don’t want on your hands away down the drain. Not just dirt and such, but also the bacteria on your hands.
If you are washing your hands properly to begin with, the majority of the bacteria on your hands are being flushed away with the water anyway, and the soap being anti-bacterial is fairly useless overkill.
Antibacterial soap is antibacterial because it’s slightly toxic. Things that kill bacteria will often kill humans in sufficient doses.
It is.
All soap will help remove bacteria from your skin, thus making it antibacterial. Just gotta wash your hands properly.
Similarly most, if not all, soaps will outright kill certain kinds of bacteria without having any kind of added bactericidal ingredient. The soap molecules do this by wiggling into the bacterial cell wall and disrupting it enough to kill the bacterium.
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