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

191–200 of 218 posts

Re: The forgotten joy of soap

#191

Post by oska »

Frondo wrote: post #177
crooked-v wrote: post #162

Earlier quoted context omitted.

...and simple dental work dates back to before recorded history, suggesting that cavities have always been a problem, even if they were probably much rarer before the mass use of refined sugar.

Cavities are also found in other mammals; they're not even just a human problem. Something like 5% of dogs get cavities. If you have an older dog and get their teeth cleaned, some might need to be pulled. I even saw something about cavities in dolphins... and, if I remember right, the thing about humans not getting cavities before the advent of the modern diet stems from a dentist who had some unorthodox theories abo…

Dogs are a bad example to use to support your argument as they are domesticated animals who are fed processed dog food.

Re: The forgotten joy of soap

#192

Post by ASalazarMX »

spydez wrote: post #149
ASalazarMX wrote: post #126

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Oily skin gentleman here. I could not wash my hair with only water, after a week it would smell like a wet dog in the sun. On the other hand, it's never going to suffer for lack of natural oils.

Some of it could be you're oily because you don't want to be oily. You wash your hair and get rid of all the oil on the scalp protecting your skin. So your scalp makes as much as it can to replenish. Lather rinse repeat and now you've trained it to always go ham. I've been washing my hair with just water for a year or so. I'm still oily, but much less so. When I have shorter hair it's on the high side of acceptable.…

> I've been washing my hair with just water for a year or so. I'm still oily, but much less so.

Maybe you just got used to it? I shaved my head for a couple of years and it was still oily, just easier to clean. Shampoo, gel or soap don't seem to make a difference, and I'd rather not wash oily skin with just water.

Re: The forgotten joy of soap

#193

Post by ptx »

projektfu wrote: post #108
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…

According to Burkhart, 20/20 patients in their pilot study answered affirmatively that eliminating soap bathing helped their atopic dermatitis (eczema). They mention that this is already a routine recommendation in some countries such as China. https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/18986472

All kinds of absurd medical beliefs are common in China, so I wouldn't put too much stock in that.

Re: The forgotten joy of soap

#195

Post by NeedMoreTea »

kzrdude wrote: post #181
NeedMoreTea wrote: post #18

It's quite remarkable how successful the marketing campaign against bar soap has been such that it's somehow thought of as unclean. All to get us to switch to far, far more wasteful liquid soap.

Do you ever get your bar soaps to last more than halfway though? When half is left, they are usually dry and don't lather at all, nearly unusable.

Mostly yes. It does deteriorate if left somewhere they stay damp, or sit in a puddle, but that's a function of the dish. So we always use something that isn't the simple puddle friendly indentation in ceramic often found in bathroom fittings.

When they get small enough to be fiddly, I press the remnant of the old bar into the new one, so near zero waste.

Re: The forgotten joy of soap

#196

Post by benj111 »

elliekelly wrote: post #139
alexhutcheson wrote: post #88

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Is that recommendation published somewhere? I'd be curious to read the details.

I don't have any published sources about not using soap but I use Mother Dirt products and my understanding is that nitric oxide ("NO") on the skin has a whole bunch of important functions[1] and a lot of NO on our skin comes from ammonia oxidizing bacteria ("AOB")[2] that colonizes on our skin and eats (metabolizes?) our sweat. In theory, all of our modern hygiene products reduce the AOB (and presumably other "good"…

"someone trying to sell me something"

What were they selling? Not washing doesn't seem to provide many business opportunities that I can think of. Posies?

Re: The forgotten joy of soap

#197

Post by benj111 »

okcando wrote: post #87
duncanawoods wrote: post #15

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You are right, no soap. It calls itself a "beauty bar" hah! I use it and it certainly doesn't cause the astringent and drying effect I get from real soap. I tried to find out whether it was actually recommended for the skin and it's an ungoogleable topic infested by a toxic combination of beauty product snake-oil and "chemicals are evil" antivaxish insanity so I'm none the wiser.

Dove beauty bars contain soap. The ingredients list sodium tallowate or sodium palmitate, which are soaps from animal or vegetable fat, respectively.

But "Dove doesn't dry your skin like soap can" (uk advertising tagline) which would suggest it isn't soap.

Re: The forgotten joy of soap

#198

Post by benj111 »

Dirlewanger wrote: post #168
DanBC wrote: post #45

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I wash hands tens of times per day. Every time before touching food, or after touching something potentially poisonous (like eliquid, strong detergents, gasoline, etc). You may want to read this from the US CDC: When is clean too clean? https://wwwnc.cdc.gov/eid/article/7/2/70-0225_article

So basically: Everyone use alcohol-based hand cleaners.

Tried googling but can't find it.

There was a study not so long ago. The alcohol will kill all the bacteria, but the first to return are all the nasties, and there aren't any good bacteria to keep them in check. You basically destroy the balanced ecosystem on your hands.

Re: The forgotten joy of soap

#199

Post by projektfu »

Dig1t wrote: post #175
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…

"I don't smell" is the classic response of someone who smells bad. No offense, it's just that every time in my life where I've encountered someone who has said things like this, they have been someone who smells bad but people around them just weren't letting them know.

There's also the probability that you have met numerous people who rarely/never use soap on their bodies and had no idea. Meanwhile, there's someone who smells bad despite daily soap showers and you complain about them.

Re: The forgotten joy of soap

#200

Post by duncanawoods »

benj111 wrote: post #197
okcando wrote: post #87

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Dove beauty bars contain soap. The ingredients list sodium tallowate or sodium palmitate, which are soaps from animal or vegetable fat, respectively.

But "Dove doesn't dry your skin like soap can" (uk advertising tagline) which would suggest it isn't soap.

A theseus ship type issue. As okcando says - it contains fatty acid salts which are what we call soap. However, lots of things contain these without becoming soap e.g. cheese and napalm so... yeah.
Post reply on HN