People wash their hands all the time. Before eating, after eating, after toilet, some may even wash their hands every 15 minutes. Doctors suggest people to wash their hand to prevent bacteria and sickness. Now, more and more people start to use anti-bacterial soap or other anti-bacterial stuffs to further prevent sickness. They think this is way more effective than normal soap because it can kills 99% of the bacteria. So, is anti-bacterial soap really useful and do we need them?
Of course, anti-bacterial soap contains soap and anti-bacterial materials. This is how anti-bacterial soap works. Inside the soap, there are two kinds of molecule called hydrophilic and hydrophobic. With these molecules, soap can decrease water’s surface tension and bind to dirt, oil and bacteria. Once it bind all those things, water can bring them away. So actually, normal soap can bring some bacteria away, too(Learn more).
Even the normal soap can bring away bacteria, then we assume that anti-bacterial soap can bring away more. But, there is no evidence that anti-bacterial soap is more power than simple soap and water. There is also test point out that, the antibacterial components need to stay on surface for 2 minutes in order to work. So most of the people only use the soap part of the anti-bacterial soap(Learn more.
Not all the bacteria are bad for us, there are some bacteria that help us defend the harmful bacterial. We all know that if we keep killing a kind of bacteria or virus, it will start to development resistant. It becomes super bacteria and human have to invent new things to go against it. So is anti-bacterial soap, if we keep using it, there is a chance that it helps the development of super bacteria(Learn more).
Is it really necessary to use the anti-bacterial soap? I don’t think so. Normal soap is as good as those and even cheaper. Of course, there are many places that need t o use anti-bacterial soap, such as hospital. But in daily life, a simple soap with water is more than enough for most of us.
whoah! Never thought of Anti-Bacterial soap in this way. This is actually really interesting, and needs to be more widely acknowledged. People just assume that anti-bacterial soap is more beneficial, and that they need it rather than actually researching about it.
Good choice of topic, as I always wondered the same thing. I feel most of the time people buy whatever sounds more appealing, and when you don’t want to get sick, anti-bacterial sounds like a good choice! So maybe it is just another marketing scheme.
This is an important topic to consider because like we learned today in class people use antibacterial soap because it is a widely known concept that is said to kill illness-causing bacteria. It is important to be assured that there is evidence supporting the use of anti bacterial soap before committing to it. Honestly anti bacterial soap could be causing a negative effect if we have no proof of the opposite.
This was a good topic to choose. I always wondered what the difference was between regular soap and anti-bacterial soup. I though that all soaps did basically the same thing: clean hands. You also stated that the anti bacterial soap needs to be on the hands for more than 2 minutes to work, so a lot of people probably miss out on the true effects of it. As for me, I think I’ll stick to my regular soaps that I always use.
This post was very informative and useful to consumers. A lot of time labels of products can trick us into buying the more expensive option even when it’s unnecessary.
Once my high school science class also discussed this topic and we made the conclusion that it is unnecessary to use anti bacteria soap because using it often will cause resistance and anti bacteria soap will no longer works. So for me, I always normal soap.
This is a very interesting topic. I hadn’t even thought of how the bacteria could build resistance. I am definitely going to start picking normal soap of the anti-bacterial kind. Plus it’s cheaper.