Speaker 1: Welcome to brain Stuff production of I Heart Radio. Hey
Speaker 1: brain Stuff. Lauren vog Obam here with a classic episode
Speaker 1: from our erstwhile host, Christian Sagar. This is one that
Speaker 1: I wrote in the way back for our YouTube series
Speaker 1: because once the question occurred to me, I couldn't get
Speaker 1: it out of my head. How dirty is soap? Hey
Speaker 1: brain Stuff? It's Christian Sager. It's good hygiene to wash
Speaker 1: your hands after using the restroom and after touching kind
Speaker 1: of gross stuff, you know, like raw meat, snakes, cat litter, cats,
Speaker 1: biomedical waist and any number of shared surfaces from door
Speaker 1: knobs to countertops. But what about soap? Bars of soap
Speaker 1: are also shared surfaces, So how dirty is soap? Soap
Speaker 1: is absolutely seething with bacteria, But you know, so is
Speaker 1: your face, and so so is my face and everything
Speaker 1: we come into contact with all the every day. Really
Speaker 1: organism for organism, microbes outnumber humans on the planet at
Speaker 1: least a hundred and thirty one quintillion to one, Sell
Speaker 1: for sell. The microbes in and on our bodies outnumber
Speaker 1: us ten to one, and human hands can have up
Speaker 1: to one hundred thousand micro organisms per square centimeter of skin.
Speaker 1: Most of them are harmless or you know, even helpful,
Speaker 1: But yeah, there's a lot of them, and some of
Speaker 1: them get transferred to your soap. One study from reported
Speaker 1: that of the bar soaps they tested, two to nine
Speaker 1: percent cultured positive for micro organisms. The antibacterial soap they
Speaker 1: tested actually had a bit more microbial activity than regular soap.
Speaker 1: The soaps in question we're in use by the staff
Speaker 1: of clinics and laboratories over the course of seven days,
Speaker 1: and samples were taken on five of those days. But
Speaker 1: the interesting and come heating part of their results is
Speaker 1: that the microbes didn't build over the course of that week.
Speaker 1: Organisms would appear and disappear with each sample taken, indicating
Speaker 1: one of two things. Either the soaps were somehow self sterilizing,
Speaker 1: possibly due to preservatives they contain that are you know,
Speaker 1: not delicious or downright dastardly to microbes, or the little
Speaker 1: buggers were being mechanically removed during the process of washing,
Speaker 1: meaning that as you wash your hands, you're also washing
Speaker 1: your soap. These results back up a couple of other
Speaker 1: studies about microbes and hand washing, one from x and
Speaker 1: one from the former study had subjects come into their
Speaker 1: lab douse a hand in a vat of bacteria and
Speaker 1: then wash with a bar of soap. The soap was
Speaker 1: tested for the bacteria, then given to another subject to
Speaker 1: assess the transfer of the bacteria. The latter study carefully
Speaker 1: doused bars of soap with ec. Cole I and had
Speaker 1: subjects come in and first sterilize their hands, then wash
Speaker 1: them with this gross soap. The researchers then tested both
Speaker 1: the hands and the soap from microbes. Both of these
Speaker 1: studies found that although bacteria remained on the soaps, none
Speaker 1: transferred to the participant's hands. Now here's the thing to note.
Speaker 1: These studies were done by employees of Procter and Gamble
Speaker 1: and Dial Corporation, respectively, and the first study I mentioned
Speaker 1: that one from that was completed with a grant from
Speaker 1: Minnatonka Incorporated, which was the original maker of soft soap.
Speaker 1: That doesn't necessarily mean their science was bad, though experts
Speaker 1: say there's no evidence to contradict their results. So bar
Speaker 1: soap is not underty, but it's still safe to use
Speaker 1: and way better than not washing. So here's a few
Speaker 1: pro tips. Be sure to dry your hands thoroughly after washing,
Speaker 1: don't wash more often than necessary, that can lead to
Speaker 1: parched skin, which can crack, which can let in microbes.
Speaker 1: You otherwise would have been able to just wash off
Speaker 1: and make sure you store bar soap in a dish
Speaker 1: that lets it drain and dry out between uses. That
Speaker 1: will cut down on any potential bacterial growth. Today's episode
Speaker 1: was written by me and produced by Tyler Clang. Brain
Speaker 1: Stuff is production of iHeart Radio's How Stuff Works. For
Speaker 1: more in this and lots of other clean topics, visit
Speaker 1: our home planet, how stuff Works dot com. Plus for
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