Bar Soap

[AJPTaylor]

Genuine question as can't find the answer from a quick Google. Recently changed to bar soap ( well dd bought bars of soap and put them in the bathrooms). Can corona virus/other nasties remain on the soap and spread to the next user or does contact with the soap kill stuff?is it different depending on what kind of soap it is? (Ie whether it is carbolic vs unicorn glitter ?)

You should, of course, wear rubber gloves before washing your hands with a bar of soap - honestly this is getting beyond stupid. If someone in your house has Coronavirus you have more problems than the bar of soap.

Hmm I’m not completely convinced. All those articles saying bar soap can’t cross contaminate go back to the one study from 1988 which was funded by a soap manufacturer.

It probably is ok so long as the soap is rinsed in warm water properly and you don’t use it with cracks in it.

If someone was sick with norovirus and a bit landed on the bar of soap then it could be infectious if you touched it to your face. I guess it should wash as clean as your hands when you use it. Ie if the soap cleans your hands it probably gets cleaned itself during the same process.

Good for obsessing over though. I love a good infection control anecdote.

I have been using wrights coal tar soap since my mum had it in our bathroom when I was a child. Now many many years later I don’t feel clean using anything else. I do have a few fancy soaps that people have bought me as gifts but I rarely use them and leave them in my drawers and waldrobe to scent the clothes.

@flirtygirl I'm with you re. the public loos. I never use them except in absolute emergencies and also use tissues to open and close public loo doors. I also do this at work. I have witnessed several colleagues come out of toilet cubicles and exit without washing their hands I'm sure the number of male colleagues doing this is even higher. I will not touch door handles etc at work without tissues or gloves.

After seeing someone who sits on my floor thoroughly pick their nose and then shake hands with someone minutes later I avoid handshaking but see this is now standard advice in the fight against Coronavirus so all good!

I will also not eat or drink in the house of anyone who doesn't rinse their dishes
I didn't even know that was a thing until I went to a school friends house for dinner when I was 6/7 ( my parents are West Indian and not rinsing is unheard of).

I do not eat in houses where dogs are kept but that is due to my own paranoia as I have seen dogs eating from communal dinner plates in a couple of houses.

@flirtygirl
I also would not never rinse my washing up
I'm losing the will to live on this post. What does it all mean? Washing soap and spraying with disinfectant? What happens when you travel on the tube with real people and their germs? This thread is nearly as funny as the one about the 2-storey bread bin.

I live alone, so not that bothered about what I might transmit on soap. I don;t 'wash' it - but suppose I rinse of any lather from the bar as I put it back - doesn't really get gungy.

But the germs that sit on the squirter of liquid hand soap, that only gets touched by dirty hands..... (thought actually went through my head at work today),
Work has got automated (no-touch) alcoholic hand sanitiser stations installed at strategic places around the building, sort of useful, but you use them and then have to touch lift buttons.

DoctorNicoeWaterson you’ve made my day! Thank you very much - I can’t believe they still exist and I didn’t know about it .

As an avid Enid Blyton reader I was always under the impression the only soap that could tackle impossibly dirty things (like dirty urchins who never wore shoes and could climb mountains like a goat or coal-dust cover policemen with colds) was carbolic soap.

I think carbolic soap is the only answer. Wash the world with it. Sorted.

What does rinsing dishes mean?

In what context plunkplunk?

Aaaagh! This thread is resurrecting my guilt over not using bar soap!

I prefer the feel of it to liquid soap, and obviously environmentally it's a lot better, so I replaced all our liquid soap with bars of soap about a year ago.

A short while after, our bathroom and cloakroom sinks started blocking regularly, and the pipe beneath had to be taken apart and cleared of sludge regularly.

A helpful Mumsnet thread helped me conclude that it was due to our water type (hard), combined with washing our hands with cool water. Our water tank (in loft) takes ages to send through hot water, so we are all used to using the cold tap. I eventually changed back to liquid soap but buy proper refill bottles and always recycle them.

I have just been showing the kids the NHS video on how to wash hands, but now I'm wondering if we should start washing with warm water for greater effectiveness...... which means running the tap for ages to get the hot water through......which wastes water........but could that be offset environmentally by returning to bar soap? But now I've given all the lovely ridged soap trays (to keep the soap firm) to the charity shop.......aaaaaagh!

Someone mentioned being disgusted by people not rinsing dishes and I don’t quite understand what that means.

Soap Protocol sounds like the new Coronavirus-themed John Grisham novel which will be made into a film starring Tom Cruise.

@plunkplunkfizz rinsing dishes is, after washing dishes in soap and water, running water (no soap) over them.

I have display soap!

I really hate bar soap. It's very drying and I really hate the way it feels on my skin. I use face wash and shower gel. If I have ever had to use soap on my face I have a big breakout of spots.

Fantasmagoria what soap are you using? Quality definitely does matter - I've recently started making my own and it feels lovely on the skin because it is full of glycerine and the extra oils I add. Lots of commercial soap has the glycerine taken out so it's not as kind to skin.

We've moved this over to our new Coronavirus topic!

@LittleCabbage Just tip a kettle full of boiling water down the sink once a week, melts away any soap build-up in the pipes :)

I've seen a few videos on YouTube showing soap making, and it looks relatively easy. The recipes also don't include palm oil unless you want it.

@BlackInk I did do this regularly - more than once weekly, but the sinks still blocked. Also tried regular use of washing soda crystals - no help.

Incidentally, I have just tried washing my hands using the hot tap, leaving it running whilst I wash to the tune of Happy Birthday twice..... and it still wasn't even warm at the end of that. I guess we'll stick to cold water washing unless out and about.

@LittleCabbage Instead of (alkaline) washing soda, use a strong acid solution; citric acid or vinegar in very hot water. This will help neutralise the alkaline soap and it should liquify better to rinse away. Commercial kitchen cleaners are alkaline, to get rid of grease and bathroom cleaners are acid, to get rid of hard water marks and soap scum.

@UnaOfStormhold, I wouldn't recommend that unless you're a chemist! (Professional soapmaker here). The recipe you describe probably needs a preservative because of the water content, but it would be hard to know unless you develop a precise recipe and submit it for assessment. The water content makes bacterial growth/contamination a possibility, and you don't know without calculating it out properly that your soap concentration/ph is high enough to prevent this.

Do you live in a particularly hard water area? Good quality soap should normally lather just fine. Cheap supermarket soap might not.

That's interesting @Twenty2, and sounds v plausible. I will now spend the day deciding whether to switch back!

Rinsing dishes = rinsing soapsuds of your dishes. So you apply washing up liquid and then can either a) leave the soapsuds to drain off/wipe them off with a tea-towel or b) rinse them. I do the latter.

It seems to be a peculiarly English (or British perhaps) habit since I've never saw anyone do this abroad in all the years I lived in other European countries. I think it is quite unpleasant. But I've also learned on another thread that bathing your child once a week with a 'flannel wipe' in between is the norm here as well so and I don't do that with my DC so accept my views are in the minority.