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I finally feel justified! Not only do I get my hands dirty, but I also don't use soap unless water alone can't get them clean. Most of the time, our great universal solvent does a fine job without stripping my good bacteria.

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I have read but not verified that washing with water is about as effective as with soap at removing bacteria from hands. Having soap on your hands forces you to get all the soap off, which requires touching more skin surface.

I'm sure the behavioural point is correct, but surfactants effect oils in a way that water does not. Water will not be as effective

I also remember reading this - that unless there is oil and grease which requires soap to remove, then water alone is effective. At the time it seemed to me it was somewhere fairly reputable. From memory, the idea was that soap reduced the friction, and actually might lessen the effectiveness. I think it wasn't comparing best-practice handwashing with and without soap, but focused instead on the kind of handwashing that people actually do.

Hard to find anything on it now, and I understand soap was particularly effective against SARS-CoV-2 compared to water alone (can I just call it the COVID-19 virus?) so it looks like the idea is mostly gone now.

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