The forgotten joy of soap
spectator.co.uk
spectator.co.uk
Regardless of all that worthiness though - I just prefer using the stuff and am gently delighted when I walk into my bathroom and minded of the smell of my grandmother's house, decades ago.
As the article implies, it comes with a certain fondness.
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Added bonus - it works great on clothes that have been fouled by baby mess or food splatter.
Soap is straighforward, effective, washes off easily, and is available in many wonderful forms. I currently use Dr Bronner's inimitable liquid soap, and am looking forward to using some small but ruinously expensive bars i bought from Claus Porto while on holiday.
I suspect that the real reason why soap feels like it washes off more easily is that it leaves a layer of soap scum on your skin and detergents don't. Those detergents also likely have moisturizers added to compensate for stripping off all of the natural oils that protect your skin.
I heard some people wash their teeth with soap, I'm not there yet :))
For the sake of science, I just repeated that, so as taught in school, the scientific method.
experiment: brushing teeth with soap instead of toothpaste.
apparatus: toothbrush, soap (sainsbury's cheapo), teeth, darwin-award level of stupidity.
result: surprisingly inoffensive. Almost no taste of soap unless the suds reached the very back of your tongue. Considerably foamier than toothpaste!
conclusion: for this brand of soap at least, an acceptable substitute. Minty soap would be better.
Note that toothpaste actually contains a very fine abrasive which soap lacks. Also laundry soap (came in thick green bars IIRC) was probably far worse.
Most of the cleaning comes from the action of the brush on your teeth which physically removes bacterias, leftover food, &c.
After using it I don't feel clean. I feel like I just rubbed cooking oil on my body.
With regular soap bars you get the "clean" feeling which no other product seems to match.
Bathing is more a social issue than a health issue.
Homemade or clasical bar soap contains glycerin naturally. Commercially made bar soap usually has the glycerin stipped out because they can resell it at a much higher price in cosmetics and skin care products.
Body oils have compounds in them that do things other than act as a simple emollient.
I'm not trying to convince you to change what you're doing. I'm just saying it's not as simple as you're making it out to be.
I use soap and just apply jojoba oil (and aloe) after showering, which I understand is similar to human oil, but it's unclear to me whether it's truly a good enough 1:1 replacement or if I could be doing some kind of harm longer-term.
I tried to find out whether it was actually recommended for the skin and it's an ungoogleable topic infested by a toxic combination of beauty product snake-oil and "chemicals are evil" antivaxish insanity so I'm none the wiser.
The ingredients list sodium tallowate or sodium palmitate, which are soaps from animal or vegetable fat, respectively.
Interestingly, the "Palm" in Napalm is also Sodium Palmitate.
"Napalm doesn't dry you skin like soap can"
Wife gets QV Wash, which is less harsh and generally recommended as a gentle cleanser. Expensive, though. Also Australian-made. If you have dry skin, atopic dermatitis, etc. this is what you need.
Cetaphil is in the same section. About as expensive. Doesn't lather as well. Not sure if Australian-made.
But all of my knowledge in this area came from someone trying to sell me something so it should be taken with a grain of salt. I'm sure there's a microbiologist somewhere on HN who could explain the relationship between soap/skin microbiome much better.
What were they selling? Not washing doesn't seem to provide many business opportunities that I can think of. Posies?
I bought the Mist on a whim after chatting with someone at OpenBiome (AFAIK unaffiliated). I figured I’d try using it instead of face wash for a few months as a little experiment to see how my skin felt.
Well I have lupus so I sometimes get the “butterfly rash” across my cheeks. Anything from hot water to alcohol to a cold can trigger it. I hadn’t even considered that the mist might help with it but I was shockingly and pleasantly surprised that over time the butterfly rash became much more faint so I just kept using it.
It’s entirely possible that it’s the placebo effect but when I get the butterfly rash now it’s imperceptible to anyone who isn’t looking for it. If I were a true scientist I’d stop for a few months and see if if returns with the same intensity but I guess I’m too vain.
> Given the war against plastic, maybe there will be a reaction to all these bottles of handwash. The bar of soap might yet stage a resurgence.
Once there's enough demand, I'm sure manufacturers will follow the dollars.
I wash hands tens of times per day. Every time before touching food, or after touching something potentially poisonous (like eliquid, strong detergents, gasoline, etc).
I can't imagine using liquid soap, it doesn't clean at all! It's horrible, hands covered in some oil, can't remove it with water.
I'm using this https://www.ladymakeup.com/shop/barwa_hypoallergenic_traditi... 0.99 PLN (0.26 USD) for a 100g bar at Carrefour. It's the best soap: vegan, available, cheap.
You may want to read this from the US CDC: When is clean too clean? https://wwwnc.cdc.gov/eid/article/7/2/70-0225_article
But from the article:
> Soaps and detergents have been described as the most damaging of all substances routinely applied to skin (43). Anionic and cationic detergents are more harmful than nonionic detergents (54), and increased concentrations of surfactant result in more rapid, severe damage (55). Each time the skin is washed, it undergoes profound changes, most of them transient. However, among persons in occupations such as health care in which frequent handwashing is required, long-term changes in the skin can result in chronic damage, irritant contact dermatitis and eczema, and concomitant changes in flora.
> Irritant contact dermatitis, which is associated with frequent handwashing, is an occupational risks for health-care professionals, with a prevalence of 10% to 45% (56-58). The prevalence of damaged skin on the hands of 410 nurses was reported to be 25.9% in one survey, with 85.6% of nurses reported to have problems at some time. Skin damage was correlated with frequency of glove use and handwashing (56). Washing with plain soap may actually increase the potential for microbial transmission because of a 17-fold increase in the dispersal of bacterial colonies from the skin of the hands (59). Skin condition clearly plays a major role in risk for transmission.
Alcohol based cleaners don't work against a variety of germs that are important in healthcare settings. (eg norovirus).
There was a study not so long ago. The alcohol will kill all the bacteria, but the first to return are all the nasties, and there aren't any good bacteria to keep them in check. You basically destroy the balanced ecosystem on your hands.
For a more hand made one check this one too: https://www.ebay.com/itm/Greek-Traditional-Pure-Olive-Oil-So...
To be fair: if your hands are dirty like from gardening or working on a bicycle then some of that dirt will stick to the soap and stay there until after a couple of 'clean' uses. But in my mind that doesn't mean the soap is unclean. After all, the visible dirt is normally a lot less to worry about than the stuff which you don't perceive with your bare eyes. Of which I actually don't know whether it's present on a bar of soap or not - wouldn't be surprised if there are higher levels of bacteria on the surfcae - but whether that actually has a negative effect is something else.
I use bar soap in my own shower, but I still prefer not to use someone else's bar soap and I use equivalent liquid/foam soap for washing my hands and face.
I have no memory of mass outbreaks of $disease from all the schools, teams and friends who happily used someone else's bar soap prior to the 1990s. Just those little foot baths between swimming pool and changing areas for the one known transmission...
Some people will always prefer bottled water to tap water, even if the bottle was filled from a tap.
When they get small enough to be fiddly, I press the remnant of the old bar into the new one, so near zero waste.
People look at a half used bar of soap lying in a shared bathroom and think "Some other dirty person has rubbed that in their private parts. No way I'm touching that!!!".
Soap, unless stored in a well designed soap dish, also always has a partially dissolved slimey bit that's pretty icky.
Never heard of soap bars being considered dirty ever. That slime is just because the soap has been sitting in puddle of water in a soap-dish.
If the soap bar has "stuff" on it, you just rinse it and rub that stuff off in a second.
I'm not sure how well each of them will work, but I bought a few different bars of SheaMoisture soap and am mega pleased that the first one (https://www.sheamoisture.com/100-virgin-coconut-oil-daily-hy...) has yet to produce any soap slime. It's the only soap I can recall using that hasn't.
FWIW, I keep it vertical (sitting on the smaller end surface) on a flat shelf in the shower and not in a dish.
I have a good impression of its economics, too. I mostly just use it on my armpits and find a single up-down swipe of the end of the bar per pit produces enough lather to clean each pit and anywhere else the sun doesn't shine. I've been using it for like two months and it still looks like a full bar of soap.
For the past couple years I have been looking to cull/replace shower gels/shampoos with products that have fewer dicey ingredients per the EWG database, and none of the others can compare with how well this one controls BO (both absolutely, and in terms of the amount of time/effort I had to put into washing them with something like Dr. Bronner's to even be able to put up with my own smell.)
* https://www.amazon.com/Beyond-Soap-Truth-Beautiful-Healthy/d...
Most of the products we use may get the job done, but they tend to be heavy handed in the chemicals they use. A list of products she recommends that her clients use:
* https://www.producteliminationdiet.com
You don't want to be dirty, but there may be something to the idea of cleaning too much:
* https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hygiene_hypothesis
An interview on a local public broadcaster:
* https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xGl19JJnaK0 * https://www.tvo.org/video/the-trouble-with-soap
Generally: wash your hands and clean your (private) bits. Most of the extra scrubbing modern (office) workers do is probably unnecessary.
She also hit the nail on the head about how men shower. I cover every inch of my body with soap at least once a day. I have one soap for my body, one for my hair and another for my face. I believed that is how I'm supposed to do it, but now that I think of it I don't remember being taught. I've never thought "What is the science of self-cleaning?"
It is strange the taboos we have around critical aspects of our life. I never talk to my friends about their cleaning regimes just like I don't have serious discussions about defecation. It's like these things are "dirty" so we avoid even talking about them. Yet it seems to me that skin health and gut health are both equally essential to overall health.
I'm here for you, man, when you want to talk.
It's a remarkably simple process to make soap from oil or fat. just heat and add a caustic agent. Sodium Hydroxide for bar soap or Potassium Hydroxide for liquid soap.
When I check out the competition and look at the ingredients list I'm surprised at how many different things that are in most products. Most body washes are technically detergents not soaps.
Many bar "soaps" you find in pharmacies and grocery stores are detergent too, at least in the US. If it doesn't say "soap" on the label, it probably isn't.
Hotels from Brazil to Kenya, from New Zealand to China, from Pakistan to Denmark, have always had liquid soap for the shower.
https://www.amazon.com/Mother-Dirt-Microbiome-Plant-Based-Pr...
Soap that doesn't kill the skin biome. Unlike antibacterial which just mercs everything.
I recommend watering the soap down. The amount of soap needed is usually a fraction of the travel of the pump. Additionally when you add water, you needn't rinse before soaping - the soap mixed into the water enables lathering (thus saving water and soap).
Natural skin is slightly acidic with a pH of around 5.5 and so for the last 30 years I have used tablets of a soap substitute with the same pH value. These are called "sebamed", (manufactured in Germany). Highly recommended.
But is it about the old searchengine-gag that there are more pieces of soap found - than towels ? [rolleyes]
For the first month, my skin was so greasy all the time that it felt like I'd been wearing the same clothes for a week, just an hour after putting them on, but then my skin finally adjusted to the new normal.
My skin is soft - much too soft for a man of my age, according to my wife. I have no body odor, even after a heavy workout where I'm still covered in sweat. I can (and have) gone for week long hikes and come back not smelling bad. Contrast this to before where an hour after a shower I'd smell terrible if I didn't put on that nasty underarm deodorant (I don't use that stuff anymore, either).
My father was skeptical when I told him, but eventually I won him over and he experienced something similar when he stopped using soap to wash.
Soap is only for things you can't remove any other way (like motor oil), or for when you need antiseptic conditions.
I even saw something about cavities in dolphins... and, if I remember right, the thing about humans not getting cavities before the advent of the modern diet stems from a dentist who had some unorthodox theories about dental care that were unsupported by systematic research.
Oh, it's the Weston Price foundation people who make that claim...
https://rationalwiki.org/wiki/Weston_A._Price_Foundation
https://sciencebasedmedicine.org/sbm-weston-prices-appalling...
For me they made an excellent necklace (and an amusing way to disturb my sister), but in bygone generations they with the emergency backup replacement teeth because so many of your teeth fell out.
How are anybody's teeth at 40 if they haven't visited a dentist? Brushing is a cause of receding gums, gum infection, tooth loss, and deep pockets around the gums. Modern sticky flours and sugars also do a number on your teeth, giving bacteria a wonderful place to live.
That being said, if you don't brush your teeth, food will find places in your mouth to sit and rot. Brush your teeth for everyone around you, not for your teeth.
I still use it to wash my hands however.
The bad thing is that they leave before me as I wash my hands, but then like a minute later I need to use the same door they used to enter our office. :(
Perhaps they have mastered the art of pissing without pissing on their hands...
And people wonder why I refuse to take part in "potluck" lunches, or eat others' foods. I need to save the URL to this discussion.
I, too, cannot believe someone who does not use soap does not smell like a wild animal. It is surely a case of adaptation. Hoarders who live with hundreds of animals and urine/feces littering the floor claim they cannot smell the ammonia. They have adapted.
People of hackernews, wash your filthy hands with hot water and soap. (that's not an insult, it's an trivially-proven factual assertion: unwashed hands are filthy.)
Unless your immunocomprimised or old, your body's immune system can handle the everyday bacteria that is everywhere in the world.
Trying to make fun of someone who's being careful about what they eat is pretty insulting.
Food processing laws are there because certain bad things do happen at scale in factories & restaurants that don't happen in home kitchens and when they are personally eating things in the world around them. The laws have to protect the very young, sick and the very old with their compromised immune systems. So there are different standards for different circumstances.
There is also a matter of degree. A commercial food chef needs to wash their hands, a healthy adult person eating prepared meals by other people doesn't need to wear gloves everywhere to be safe.
Also a lot of restaurants and farms are pretty gross places, go work at a fast food place, butcher, meat processing factory and cow farm to see how gross it gets, even with food safety laws & inspections.
The hardest thing about that upbringing for her is that her instincts toward our children are very much geared toward avoiding germs at all costs. Because that was how she was raised, that's the only way she really knows how to raise our kids. Fortunately, I'm there to get them really, really dirty.
That was actually true for one of them. The other four or five (including a significant other, who I eventually split up from for a variety of reasons, and this was a small one) definitely had a musky odor that would grow increasingly strong throughout the day.
They all insisted there was no odor, but...well...there was. It was never terrible, but I think there's a reason we've really all moved to soap as a people. Sorry, friends and coworkers.
Always wash your hands with soap and water.
Just if you try it, or something like it, do not get excited and jump in head-first like us humans are wont to. And like this[1]. A month is not enough... Like, slow roll 6 months or a year.
Some people are like, "Oh, cool. Stop bathing. That's easy." No. Actually it's more like slowly cut back on detergents. Then slowly cut back on showers. Always be increasing the time and effort used to check if you're a presentable human for society today.
1: https://www.nytimes.com/2014/05/25/magazine/my-no-soap-no-sh...
It's pretty physically taxing to make a whole day of it, especially when you're splitting a bottle of vodka at the same time, but nothing leaves me feeling cleaner.
I think in the past we not only were more comfortable with odor, we also used it to recognize people. And some people suffered from malodor and were rejected by society while others were blessed with good fragrance and benefited.
I quit soap (except on my hands) and it has helped my eczema tremendously. In my experience, I have been able to wash off excessive odor without soap if I feel like I smell, but my normal odor is inoffensive. I wear undershirts to wick the sweat away and clothing (cotton, nylon) that has better properties for keeping odor at a minimum. Polyester clothing (Under Armour) gets that "gym" smell and it's hard to get rid of. The polyester fabric promotes bacteria that create foul odors.
edit: i'll also add that i too use soap minimally when showering (nether regions). i'm asian so BO has never really been an issue but i did notice that my athlete's foot has not reappeared since i stopped washing my feet with soap for a few years.
Basically stopped all smells, no fungal infection of any kind for years, and at the end of the day, my socks still smell of fabric softener.
Doesn’t prevent sweat but the boric acid completely blocks the proliferation of bacteria, so no smells and no fungus can grow.
It’s more effective if you start using it on new shoes as they will never be contaminated by bacteria.
Truly amazing how effective it has been. Just give it a few weeks.
or even a basic jug like the most basic of Indian bathrooms, which takes a little more practice.
It'd hit you like a wall.
For some, reducing meat also has an effect.
Also, you may need to control the bacteria on your skin with salt based products like Crystal deodorant.
A slightly more radical theory is that we also evolved the ability to dance and chant in unison for similar reasons--to intimate predators. That we evolved to wear clothing (in particular, colorful costumes and displays) would presumably be related, if true.
I've been washing my hair with just water, and it works better than I expected. In the past, if I didn't wash my scalp before bed I'd feel itchy and sleep badly, but water seems to do a sufficient job of convincing my brain that I'm clean. When I feel sufficiently gross I use shampoo anyway. Conditioner is required to get a brush through it; my hair is very curly and will form knots if not brushed.
I am not planning on ceasing to use body soap.
You wash your hair and get rid of all the oil on the scalp protecting your skin. So your scalp makes as much as it can to replenish. Lather rinse repeat and now you've trained it to always go ham.
I've been washing my hair with just water for a year or so. I'm still oily, but much less so. When I have shorter hair it's on the high side of acceptable. When I have longer hair it's fine - just needs to get pulled down the hairs away from the scalp so it can do its full job.
Maybe you just got used to it? I shaved my head for a couple of years and it was still oily, just easier to clean. Shampoo, gel or soap don't seem to make a difference, and I'd rather not wash oily skin with just water.
Do we know the scientific explanation for this? What makes the skin change its oil production levels?
It is possible to wipe it out permanently, though difficult, as it has to be done on everything that might touch the area, i.e. clothes, new deodorant, etc, to prevent reinfection.
[1] they are shared between people in the wash basin and the shower or tub
[2] they are used repeatedly but in reusing it, the user is potentially exposed to old grime and bacteria.
The bacteria that are in a normal household pose no threat to healthy people. Which is why you shouldn't use antibacterial stuff in your everyday life.
With regards to soap in hospitals: They also have special liquid soap dispensers you can use with your elbows. Again something you don't need in your house.