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The forgotten joy of soap

spectator.co.uk

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Re: The forgotten joy of soap

#91

Post by jfengel »

kstenerud wrote: post #46
NhanH wrote: post #41

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Do you mean you are just using water nowadays, or did you switch to using detergent or otherkind of cleaning formula?

Just water. My hair is short so I can get away with washing my hair water-only as well, but it becomes a pain for people with long hair (it can become quite unmanageable).

As I understand it, it's the opposite. I recently grew out my hair, and all the women insist that I've been doing horrible things by shampooing every day. Washing out the oils that protect my hair and keep it from drying out.

I've been washing my hair with just water, and it works better than I expected. In the past, if I didn't wash my scalp before bed I'd feel itchy and sleep badly, but water seems to do a sufficient job of convincing my brain that I'm clean. When I feel sufficiently gross I use shampoo anyway. Conditioner is required to get a brush through it; my hair is very curly and will form knots if not brushed.

I am not planning on ceasing to use body soap.

Re: The forgotten joy of soap

#92

Post by SolaceQuantum »

jdlyga wrote: post #81

I'll speak for the silent majority here who loves body wash. Unlike soap, it moisturizes your skin and makes you feel really clean.

In contrary, I've found my skin is much more moisturized when using specific, "superfatted" bar soaps. They're common in farmer's markets and the like and produced by manty artisians.

Re: The forgotten joy of soap

#93

Post by merpnderp »

buu700 wrote: post #80
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.

Devil's advocate: is this not a legitimate concern? e.g. can viruses potentially be transmitted via bar soap? I use bar soap in my own shower, but I still prefer not to use someone else's bar soap and I use equivalent liquid/foam soap for washing my hands and face.

Sure, viruses and bacteria can spread by bar soap. For instance norovirus is a tough husk mostly immune to alcohol, as are many bacterias which have thick cell walls. But the point of soap is to dissolve the oils, dead cells, and particles on your body that the viruses and bacteria have attached, and to wash them away down the drain.

Re: The forgotten joy of soap

#94

Post by merpnderp »

detritus wrote: post #16
11235813213455 wrote: post #13

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Same here, the joy of a good Marseille soap (I'm in France). It lasts at least 3 months for showers, washing hands, and everything (hair as well) I heard some people wash their teeth with soap, I'm not there yet :))

Oh Good Lord, no - I don't know if it's a particularly British thing, but children were threatened with having their "mouths washed out with soap" if they said rude words!

I'm American and as a kid definitely had my mouth washed out with soap by my grandmother.

Re: The forgotten joy of soap

#95

Post by SolaceQuantum »

I'd recommend anyone who has chronic skin issues to give african black soap a try. I'm not sure what exactly is in it that makes it work so well, but it works wonders for a variety of chronic skin irritation resulting symptoms like eczema.

Re: The forgotten joy of soap

#96

Post by Insanity »

seattle_spring wrote: post #77
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 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. :(

Re: The forgotten joy of soap

#98

Post by parentheses »

Squirty soaps are more presentable and I'm told don't dry out your skin (I have no proof of this).

I recommend watering the soap down. The amount of soap needed is usually a fraction of the travel of the pump. Additionally when you add water, you needn't rinse before soaping - the soap mixed into the water enables lathering (thus saving water and soap).

Re: The forgotten joy of soap

#99

Post by Frondo »

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?

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 increasingly strong throughout the day.

They all insisted there was no odor, but...well...there was. It was never terrible, but I think there's a reason we've really all moved to soap as a people. Sorry, friends and coworkers.

Re: The forgotten joy of soap

#100

Post by jackhack »

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?

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. It is surely a case of adaptation. Hoarders who live with hundreds of animals and urine/feces littering the floor claim they cannot smell the ammonia. They have adapted.

People of hackernews, wash your filthy hands with hot water and soap. (that's not an insult, it's an trivially-proven factual assertion: unwashed hands are filthy.)

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