this post was submitted on 14 Sep 2024
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Phrasing it like that is weird, but you don't actually need soap. It just makes the oils and grime come off easier, so without it you just need to scrub more diligently.
If you're cleaning yourself properly your skin is gonna be the same cleanliness afterwards either way. Cheap soap will dry your skin though, so use decent soap.
Cleaning regularly and effectively is the key, not the specifics. Soap just lowers the bar for effectiveness, and maybe adds "and also moisturize".
There are different kinds of people with diffetent types of skin. Some people get so oily no amount of water and scrubbing can help. The residual oil is then great for cultivating bacteria and yeast, which are ok as natural skin microflora, but if there's too many of them, they cause medical problems.
Certainly. I'm not saying soap is bad by any means. It's a tool for bathing just like any other. Not using soap to wash your body doesn't imply unhygienic anymore than not using a scrub brush makes you unhygienic.
What matters is that you wash regularly, get rid of grime, dirt, excess oils and dead skin buildup.
There's many paths to hygiene. For most people, the one with soap is the easiest and the only downside is "now moisturize".
Persistent advertising from cleaning product companies since the 50s have heavily pushed a level of cleaning and perfuming well beyond what's actually necessary for hygiene.
My body wash company would like me to use a silver dollar sized portion. I get better results from a dime sized portion and a moderate firmness silicone brush.
the question is: are they sick and thus the skin is out of whack, or are they sick because the skin is out of whack?
The amount of oil your skin produces naturally is usually connected to genes and hormone levels. It's ok to have more oily or drier skin. It's diversity, everyone is built differently.
no and yes to that; there are tall people and small people, but that is usually not a medical condition.
everyone is built the same. and certainly nobody is built to have life detrimental skin conditions; yes, severe gene defects exist. But if you are swaetting a lot and you stink like a skunk, there is a very good reason for it. and the reason is:
something is hindering homöostasis to work properly- and that is usually a thing you ingested but don't need, or a thing you did not ingest, but need. plus toxin exposure.
what do I mean by that?
Biochemistry works the same for everybody. it does not change to do something different, ever. Hormones are biochemistry.
Yes, I agree, of course there can be those kinds of patological skin conditions. Those are extremes though. Most people with oily skin are perfectly alright and are just an example of natural variation in genetics. I don't want every person with oily skin to think there's something wrong with them. But they ARE in greater risk of developing a skin condition if they don't adopt hygiene appropriate for their skin type, so advises not to use soap or shampoo can be very bad for them (and good for the dry type of skin people at the same time).
yeah, seeing it from that side, I agree. you are right
so thats why soap is one of the oldest chemical inventions : because you dont actually need it. pure luxury.
Did I say pure luxury, or did I say it makes it easier?
I did forget that something is obviously 100% vital and indispensable or entirely worthless and void of functionality.
Early soaps were used for the preparation of textiles rather than personal hygiene.
As early as we invented soap, we actually had the notion that festering in your own rancid body oils is bad far, far earlier. As such, we had ways of dealing with that well before we had soap and people didn't just immediately switch.
So go ahead and use soap. I certainly do. But if you're looking to have your mind blown, take a shower and just scrub your skin with a brush, loofah or the palm of your hand and be amazed when you still get clean. If you're really grimey, you can do what the Romans did and rub yourself with olive oil and scrape it off with a scraper before doing that.
now try doing that with hair. or your hands after vivisecting a corpse, and then delivering a baby. clean up feces and vomit, and then try to get rid of the smell without soap.
every farm worker that works with life stock knows what i am talking about. ever worked on an engine, then tried to clean your hands with water or oliveoil?
I guess the oil has merits, since certain oils DO have detergent properties.
https://www.science.org/doi/10.1126/sciadv.abe7275
But if you’re looking to have your mind blown, take a shower and just scrub your skin with a brush, loofah or the palm of your hand and be amazed when you still get clean. If you’re really grimey, you can do what the Romans did and rub yourself with olive oil and scrape it off with a scraper before doing that.
I will try that, thanks.
You are right about one thing: if you are healthy, the skin will provide everything it needs to take care of itself. you ever wondered why kids don't stink, have easy to wipe bottoms, and don't need to wash their hair every day, and what have you? its because they are not yet broken like adults are. yes, it is also the hormones; but if you have an adult that really stinks up the place after taking a shover, chances are that their metabolism is out of whack; the skin is full of microorganisms, and they have a kind of balanced relation ship with the skin. if this gets thrown, certain microorganisms will overtake the others, and produce smells like crazy.
As such, we had ways of dealing with that well before we had soap and people didn’t just immediately switch.
That logic is hard to dismiss, that is sure interesting. you are absolutely right. I wonder what they did.
Early soaps were used for the preparation of textiles rather than personal hygiene.
I guess they used it to clean absolutely everything. because soap loosens up fatty bonds. thats why using disinfectant does not get rid of the dead bacteria; they are still on your hands, albeit dead. soap does not kill most of germs, but thy are unable to cling to the skin.
I was in poor regions of africa multiple times; the poorest of the poor would use soap when they could. people are poor, but not stupid. if what you said would work, they would do it, but they buy soap instead.
wikipedia:
Roman Empire
Pliny the Elder, whose writings chronicle life in the first century AD, describes soap as "an invention of the Gauls".[22] The word sapo, Latin for soap, likely was borrowed from an early Germanic language and is cognate with Latin sebum, "tallow". It first appears in Pliny the Elder's account,[23] Historia Naturalis, which discusses the manufacture of soap from tallow and ashes. There he mentions its use in the treatment of scrofulous sores, as well as among the Gauls as a dye to redden hair which the men in Germania were more likely to use than women.[24][25] The Romans avoided washing with harsh soaps before encountering the milder soaps used by the Gauls around 58 BC.[26] Aretaeus of Cappadocia, writing in the 2nd century AD, observes among "Celts, which are men called Gauls, those alkaline substances that are made into balls [...] called soap".[27] The Romans' preferred method of cleaning the body was to massage oil into the skin and then scrape away both the oil and any dirt with a strigil.[28] The standard design is a curved blade with a handle, all of which is made of metal.[29]
The 2nd-century AD physician Galen describes soap-making using lye and prescribes washing to carry away impurities from the body and clothes. The use of soap for personal cleanliness became increasingly common in this period. According to Galen, the best soaps were Germanic, and soaps from Gaul were second best. Zosimos of Panopolis, circa 300 AD, describes soap and soapmaking.
You're taking "it's possible to be clean after bathing without soap" as a way stronger statement than it is.
Do you think I'm saying soap is bad?
No one is talking about hygienic hand washing practices for medicine, food prep, after defecation, or after being coated in tough substances.
We're in a giant pile of people talking about routing bathing to prevent body odor and the skin issues caused by poor bodily hygiene.
Washing with running water and a scrubbing action is sufficient for that purpose for many people. Bathing without soap is not a guarantee that you will have BO, a rash, skin lesions, or acne.
The Africa point isn't really the gotcha you think it is. Soap working better faster doesn't mean that a lack of soap doesn't work. As you said, when they didn't have soap they still washed. People are generally interested in being clean, and pragmatic. They'll clean themselves, and if something helps them get cleaner faster, they'll use it.
And yup, that passage does document that the Roman empire eschewed soap for personal hygiene until roughly year zero.
Yeah, romans began to use soap at roughly year zero. I wonder why. I wonder why people use deodorant every day, when they just can spray water under their arms.
You absolutely do need soap. It literally causes bacteria to disintegrate, something you can't do with water alone.
The primary action that soap has for fighting bacteria is breaking down oils and making it easier for debris and bacteria to be removed. Less food for the bacteria, and faster removal.
Bacteria will be destroyed by this process, but that's coincidental to why soap works and provides benefit.
It's why we don't tell people to wash their hands by squirting soap on them, spreading it around and then rinsing it off. The critical step is the mechanical action that facilitates removal of debris with running water.
Yes, soap is necessary for hand washing because we need to maximize bacteria removal after defecation or before preparing foods or medical activities.
In the context of bathing however, you don't need to sterilize your torso. You will also be rinsing your body far longer than you're typically going to be washing your hands, which when combined with scrubbing results in a clean torso.
I'm not one of those people who's opposed to using soap or anything, but that's not the same as recognizing that it's possible to wash and be clean without it.
thats worng, you describe disinfectants, soap breaks the fatty bonds that stick the bacteria to your skin. so, while you whash your hands, these alive bactera are whashed down the drain.
Soap does destroy some bacteria, and a not insignificant portion. By destroying those fatty bonds the cellular membranes of many bacteria are destroyed, and many viruses denatured and rendered inert.
The removal is the primary action though, you are correct. Not all bacteria are destroyed by soap, which is why the leather, scrub, and scrub while rinsing steps are important to hand washing, since that mechanical action is what removes everything.
https://medicine.yale.edu/news-article/why-soap-works/
thanks, thats certainly a good read! I wonder though why clinics don't have soap bars; maybe thats not true, but is it not general knowledge that soap bars spread germs?
ah, you answered that as well, sorry. thanks!