Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

The forgotten joy of soap

spectator.co.uk

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

111–120 of 218 posts

Re: The forgotten joy of soap

#111

Post by projektfu »

ivanhoe wrote: post #104
Frondo wrote: post #99

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm kind of glad someone brought this up. I've known a handful of people who went soap-free (I used to live in a much more granola part of the country) and they insisted they had no odor. That was actually true for one of them. The other four or five (including a significant other, who I eventually split up from for a variety of reasons, and this was a small one) definitely had a musky odor that would grow increasing…

How we smell depends a lot on our activities. It's really the bacteria that cause sweat to smell bad, so it depends a lot on a physical activity and how long it's been sitting on the body. When a person sweats a lot, like during sports, sweat contains much more water and less food for bacterias, so the smell is less intensive. In high-school I used to spend whole summer on the beach playing sports, sweating like a pi…

Indeed, I remember hearing about a product being researched which was a spray made from a certain kind of soil that promoted a different bacterial population on the skin to reduce malodor. Unfortunately I can't find any references now. Still, it actually works pretty well to go to the beach for a while and then you will smell better for days, so I think there's something going on there, whether it's the ocean water or the sand.

Re: The forgotten joy of soap

#112

Post by elliekelly »

Insanity wrote: post #96
seattle_spring wrote: post #77

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I hope you either still use soap when washing your hands, or work from home and don't go out to eat. I work with a bunch of nastyass people that take huge noisy dumps and then just walk right out of the bathroom without washing. No wonder I get sick several times a year now.

When I see colleagues just leave the bathroom without washing their hands I always have an urge to say something but never do. The bad thing is that they leave before me as I wash my hands, but then like a minute later I need to use the same door they used to enter our office. :(

We had the "Toepener"[1] installed on the bathroom doors of my last office. A bit tricky to use in heels but otherwise it got nothing but positive feedback.

[1] https://www.thetoepener.com

Re: The forgotten joy of soap

#113

Post by abathur »

londons_explore wrote: post #23

Bar soap has died due to a perceived lack of cleanliness. People look at a half used bar of soap lying in a shared bathroom and think "Some other dirty person has rubbed that in their private parts. No way I'm touching that!!!". Soap, unless stored in a well designed soap dish, also always has a partially dissolved slimey bit that's pretty icky.

The slimy bit always bugged me. I eventually got over being grossed out, but I still hate that so much of the bar is wasted.

I'm not sure how well each of them will work, but I bought a few different bars of SheaMoisture soap and am mega pleased that the first one (https://www.sheamoisture.com/100-virgin-coconut-oil-daily-hy...) has yet to produce any soap slime. It's the only soap I can recall using that hasn't.

FWIW, I keep it vertical (sitting on the smaller end surface) on a flat shelf in the shower and not in a dish.

I have a good impression of its economics, too. I mostly just use it on my armpits and find a single up-down swipe of the end of the bar per pit produces enough lather to clean each pit and anywhere else the sun doesn't shine. I've been using it for like two months and it still looks like a full bar of soap.

For the past couple years I have been looking to cull/replace shower gels/shampoos with products that have fewer dicey ingredients per the EWG database, and none of the others can compare with how well this one controls BO (both absolutely, and in terms of the amount of time/effort I had to put into washing them with something like Dr. Bronner's to even be able to put up with my own smell.)

Re: The forgotten joy of soap

#114

Post by natex »

kstenerud wrote: post #52
icebraining wrote: post #48

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> For the first month, my skin was so greasy all the time (...), but then my skin finally adjusted to the new normal. Do we know the scientific explanation for this? What makes the skin change its oil production levels?

My guess would be that my skin was used to having all its natural oils washed off regularly, and had compensated by overproducing oil. Once I stopped washing the natural oils off, it took awhile for it to readjust.

How would skin know that it should overproduce oil? Does skin know if it's not oily enough?

Re: The forgotten joy of soap

#115

Post by twic »

freejak wrote: post #73
mlevental wrote: post #63

Earlier quoted context omitted.

the 65 million dollar question: do you only wash your butthole with water as well

this is why i visit hacker news edit: i'll also add that i too use soap minimally when showering (nether regions). i'm asian so BO has never really been an issue but i did notice that my athlete's foot has not reappeared since i stopped washing my feet with soap for a few years.

When i was younger, i didn't wash my feet. Then i started getting athlete's foot a lot. Now i wash them with soap. I get athlete's foot occasionally, but not a lot.

Re: The forgotten joy of soap

#116

Post by projektfu »

merpnderp wrote: post #89
seattle_spring wrote: post #77

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I hope you either still use soap when washing your hands, or work from home and don't go out to eat. I work with a bunch of nastyass people that take huge noisy dumps and then just walk right out of the bathroom without washing. No wonder I get sick several times a year now.

Yeah, I don't understand this at all. We went like 200,000 years without soap, and as soon as we discovered soap, we were like where have you been all my life!? And now people think they don't need soap, and I wonder if they really don't smell, or if like our ancestors, learned to tune out the reek?

Handwashing and bathing are very different things. Frequent bathing with soap is a new phenomenon in many cultures. Weekly baths were more common than daily baths in the US 50 years ago, and I have heard that many people bathed once or twice a year. Daily or twice-daily showering is extremely recent in almost all cultures, although many cultures had the equivalent of a sponge bath once or twice a day in antiquity.

I think in the past we not only were more comfortable with odor, we also used it to recognize people. And some people suffered from malodor and were rejected by society while others were blessed with good fragrance and benefited.

I quit soap (except on my hands) and it has helped my eczema tremendously. In my experience, I have been able to wash off excessive odor without soap if I feel like I smell, but my normal odor is inoffensive. I wear undershirts to wick the sweat away and clothing (cotton, nylon) that has better properties for keeping odor at a minimum. Polyester clothing (Under Armour) gets that "gym" smell and it's hard to get rid of. The polyester fabric promotes bacteria that create foul odors.

Re: The forgotten joy of soap

#117

Post by ASalazarMX »

kstenerud wrote: post #33

I stopped washing with soap 6 years ago and never looked back. For the first month, my skin was so greasy all the time that it felt like I'd been wearing the same clothes for a week, just an hour after putting them on, but then my skin finally adjusted to the new normal. My skin is soft - much too soft for a man of my age, according to my wife. I have no body odor, even after a heavy workout where I'm still covered i…

Oh, I also stopped brushing my teeth, I just wash them with water. The first month I had halitosis, but it gradually went away. I'm also more productive than ever because my coworkers have started to send me emails instead of having meetings!

Re: The forgotten joy of soap

#118

Post by coldtea »

Insanity wrote: post #96
seattle_spring wrote: post #77

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I hope you either still use soap when washing your hands, or work from home and don't go out to eat. I work with a bunch of nastyass people that take huge noisy dumps and then just walk right out of the bathroom without washing. No wonder I get sick several times a year now.

When I see colleagues just leave the bathroom without washing their hands I always have an urge to say something but never do. The bad thing is that they leave before me as I wash my hands, but then like a minute later I need to use the same door they used to enter our office. :(

>When I see colleagues just leave the bathroom without washing their hands

Perhaps they have mastered the art of pissing without pissing on their hands...

Re: The forgotten joy of soap

#119

Post by twic »

detritus wrote: post #10

I've been using bar soap for a good few years now as it was the means of cleaning that I could most-easily buy locally that seemed to incur the least plastic impact. I like to imagine that the invested energy density and cost of transport is better too, compared to gels and liquids. Regardless of all that worthiness though - I just prefer using the stuff and am gently delighted when I walk into my bathroom and minded…

I cannot stand shower gel. It feels like it sticks to my skin, and takes ages to wash off.

Soap is straighforward, effective, washes off easily, and is available in many wonderful forms. I currently use Dr Bronner's inimitable liquid soap, and am looking forward to using some small but ruinously expensive bars i bought from Claus Porto while on holiday.

Re: The forgotten joy of soap

#120

Post by coldtea »

jackhack wrote: post #100
merpnderp wrote: post #89

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yeah, I don't understand this at all. We went like 200,000 years without soap, and as soon as we discovered soap, we were like where have you been all my life!? And now people think they don't need soap, and I wonder if they really don't smell, or if like our ancestors, learned to tune out the reek?

Correct. 200,000 years dying at an early age from easily-preventable infections, among them cholera and dysentery which are easily spread from --yep, you guessed it-- not washing after using the toilet. And people wonder why I refuse to take part in "potluck" lunches, or eat others' foods. I need to save the URL to this discussion. I, too, cannot believe someone who does not use soap does not smell like a wild animal…

>And people wonder why I refuse to take part in "potluck" lunches, or eat others' foods

Nothing that being fussy, squeamish and hypochondriac can't explain...

Post reply on HN