Is body wash as good as hand soap?

Underdog

We're out of soap but have a bottle of body wash that no one uses. As far as killing germs and making things clean, is body wash as good as soap? A search mostly pulls up info on how hand soap can be used in place of body wash but not much on the other way around? Basically, is it all just soap?

nuka

Unless you're about to preform surgery I don't see what the problem is.
Though there are chemicals in hand soap that are specifically made to kill certain germs, it's the friction movement that does the work.

The last time you used a public restroom, did it say antibacterial soap or was it just a non-descript pink soap that you used and didn't think about just so you could get out of a public restroom?

If it bugs you just rub your hands a bit more, I remember being told to sing happy birthday to myself while washing up.

Antoine

Body wash as in liquid soap?

The best soap is liquid soap, and the best shampoos are actually these little bars of shampoo.

Regina Fong

Body wash accomplishes the purpose just fine. Absent an anti-bacterial agent, the heat from the water and friction of rubbing your hands is what kills germs during hand washing, the purpose of the soap is to remove actual dirt, which as you may suspect, body wash does indeed do. And anti-bacterial hand soap is unnecessary anyway.

Fagatron

Antibacterial soaps are incredibly bad for the environment anyway. The chemicals in them that are antibacterial not only don't biodegrade naturally or in water treatment facilities, but they also act as phytoestrogens causing all sorts of horrible things to (potentially) happen to animal life.

In addition to that they help breed new antibiotic and antibacterial resistant strains of germs.

The only place they should be being used is hospitals. Your body wash will be fine, as long as you are using warm water and your hands are getting slippery.

Buttcleft

Proper hand washing technique is more important than a useless near-fictional anti-microbial factor in every case unless you have live in an entire house of people with supressed/non-existant immune systems due to disease or transplant.

BoomShake

Hot hand washing water killing more germs is merely a myth. Studies have shown that as far as bacteria is concerned, hot and cold hand washing have no difference. To actually have an effect, the water would be significantly hotter than you could handle. Hot water for hand washing only a) is more comfortable and b) dissolves dirt and oils more easily. Similarly, friction merely helps dislodge oils and whatnot, but doesn't actually kill germs.

Underdog

All right, cool. Thanks.

Antoine

So does this mean it's ok to wash your hands with just water and no soap?

Fagatron

BoomShake wrote: »

Hot hand washing water killing more germs is merely a myth. Studies have shown that as far as bacteria is concerned, hot and cold hand washing have no difference. To actually have an effect, the water would be significantly hotter than you could handle. Hot water for hand washing only a) is more comfortable and b) dissolves dirt and oils more easily. Similarly, friction merely helps dislodge oils and whatnot, but doesn't actually kill germs.

Yeah, and germs generally cling to dirt and oils, they don't fare well on dry surfaces. It's the slipperiness that dislodges them.

Antibacterial soaps do nothing for the average consumer other than breed germs that will cause them harm and fuck up the environment.

It's a stupid marketing thing that was only started in the early 90s.

Fagatron

Antoine wrote: »

So does this mean it's ok to wash your hands with just water and no soap?

Nah, soap is pretty important.

http://chemistry.about.com/od/cleanerchemistry/a/how-soap-cleans.htm

MushroomStick

Do you consider your hands to be clean after you get out of the shower? If so, then the body wash should be fine.

Fagatron

Also, brief information about why antibacterial soaps are fuckawful.

http://www.neatorama.com/2010/04/10/triclosan-in-antibacterial-soaps-may-actually-be-bad-for-you/

ceres

Hey, I did this experiment in microbiology!

The result? If you want to get dirt off your hands, soap is soap and the antibacterial component doesn't have that much of an effect versus soaps without it, unless you're using it in pretty high concentration. Soap is always better than no soap, though, and that's only because it helps makes dirt soluble so that it washes away. So yeah, body wash should be fine in a pinch.

If all you want to do is kill germs, use hand sanitizer. It's basically just some alcohol most of the time, evaporates right away, and kills just about everything instantly.

KalTorak

It all depends.

Is it... lady-scented body-wash?

clearsimpleplain

So what I'm hearing is that washing my face with body wash while in the shower = washing it with bar soap? It's what I've been doing because I'm lazy but I never know if I feel as clean.

Fagatron

Just as clean, possibly a little more expensive depending on the price of the body wash vs. bar soap.

BoomShake

The only problem is that bar soap can sometime be too harsh and strip away too much of your facial oils, leading to dry skin and so forth.

ashridah

clearsimpleplain wrote: »

So what I'm hearing is that washing my face with body wash while in the shower = washing it with bar soap? It's what I've been doing because I'm lazy but I never know if I feel as clean.

The 'not as clean' feeling is probably whatever moisturizers they put in them making you feel more oily than if you used a bar of soap. Personally, i'd be interested to know if the moisturizer in some luxury soaps hinders the bacteria-removal goal. I suspect it's not that big of an issue.

Casual

BoomShake wrote: »

Hot hand washing water killing more germs is merely a myth. Studies have shown that as far as bacteria is concerned, hot and cold hand washing have no difference. To actually have an effect, the water would be significantly hotter than you could handle. Hot water for hand washing only a) is more comfortable and b) dissolves dirt and oils more easily. Similarly, friction merely helps dislodge oils and whatnot, but doesn't actually kill germs.

This. Unless you wash your hands in water hot enough to peel the skin from your bones it won't be killing bacteria.

More importantly it isn't really neccisary. Over sterilising your enviroment does you more harm than good, limited exposure to germs is how your immune system functions. I mean as gross as it sounds an alarming number of people either don't bother or don't properly wash their hands after going to the toilet and you don't see half the population dropping dead from cholera.

Basically soap is soap, don't worry about it so much.

Fagatron

Casual wrote: »

BoomShake wrote: »

Hot hand washing water killing more germs is merely a myth. Studies have shown that as far as bacteria is concerned, hot and cold hand washing have no difference. To actually have an effect, the water would be significantly hotter than you could handle. Hot water for hand washing only a) is more comfortable and b) dissolves dirt and oils more easily. Similarly, friction merely helps dislodge oils and whatnot, but doesn't actually kill germs.

This. Unless you wash your hands in water hot enough to peel the skin from your bones it won't be killing bacteria.

More importantly it isn't really neccisary. Over sterilising your enviroment does you more harm than good, limited exposure to germs is how your immune system functions. I mean as gross as it sounds an alarming number of people either don't bother or don't properly wash their hands after going to the toilet and you don't see half the population dropping dead from cholera.

Basically soap is soap, don't worry about it so much.

Unless something drips when I'm taking a leak, I generally figure my junk is cleaner than the sink etc. in a public restroom...

Antoine

What happens if you just use no soap or anything in the shower? Just water.

I mean, as long as you haven't been rolling around in the dirt, wouldn't that basically be fine?

Platy

Antoine wrote: »

What happens if you just use no soap or anything in the shower? Just water.

I mean, as long as you haven't been rolling around in the dirt, wouldn't that basically be fine?

My experience has been that it doesn't remove body odor as efficiently.

piL

From what I understand, the primary reason soap kills bacteria is because the hydrophobic ends of the molecules disrupt cell membranes. So the antibacterial stuff is like covering a chainsaw in acid. The chainsaw is probably enough to cut a guy in half.