Why do we use soap?

Germs, or microbes, are everywhere. Literally, everywhere. In the air, soil, water and on every surface, including your body. Most microbes are harmless and some are important for human health, like the ones that live in our gut. But there are several germs that cause problems, and these are the ones we prefer not to have on or in our bodies. Our first line of defense against those harmful germs is soap.

As a foundation of everyday hygiene, hand-washing was broadly adopted relatively recently. In the 1840s Dr. Ignaz Semmelweis, a Hungarian physician, discovered that if doctors washed their hands, far fewer women died after childbirth. At the time, microbes were not widely recognized as vectors of disease, and many doctors ridiculed the notion that a lack of personal cleanliness could be responsible for their patients’ deaths. Ostracized by his colleagues, Dr. Semmelweis was eventually committed to an asylum, where he was severely beaten by guards and died from infected wounds.

Soap isn’t new by any means; thousands of years ago, people figured out how to make a substance that overcame the deep hatred between oil and water, thus, creating soap. Soap dates back to ancient Roman times.

Today, soap is a major business; it looks a lot nicer and smells better, too. Nonetheless, it's the same product.

Soap doesn't kill germs on our hands, it removes them. 

Germs stick to the oils and grease on our hands (sounds yucky, but it's totally normal). Water alone won't remove much of the germs on our hands because water and oil don't like each other, so they won't mix. But soap likes both water and oil. That's because soap molecules are a type of surfactant, which means they have one end that's water loving, or hydrophilic, and one end that's oil loving, or hydrophobic. 

When you wash your hands with soap, the soap molecules act as a mediator between the water and oil molecules, and bind with both of them at the same time. Then when you rinse everything off, the soap carries away the germs with the water. 

As our 1st defense against germs, bacteria and viruses, soap has become an important staple in our daily lives and routines. If you are going to use soap, why would you use one laced with chemicals you cannot even pronounce?

Soap should clean, but it should be natural.

Check out our amazing soaps to get sudsy, naturally!