Soap Dispenser Soap and Kids

First off I have always been taught that antibacterial soap is better than regular and should be stocked in your soap dispensers for the most clean hands. However, I have now read several articles showing that this is not really true. The most important thing about antibacterial soap is that it needs to be left on any surface for at least two minutes to do it's job. I don't think I've ever lathered up after using the restroom or before eating and stood there for two minutes! I had no clue. I also learned that by constantly using antibacterial soaps some bacteria are more than likely building up a resistance to these antibacterial properties and therefore rendering them useless. It's actually recommended to use antibacterial soaps only when you are sick or have come in contact with someone who is and to leave the soap on your hands (or whatever surface you are cleaning) long enough to kill the germs. I'm amazed by these facts and will from now on start using soap the way it is most effective!

I also looked up if there are differences between bar soap (which I personally do not like) and liquid to see if experts feel that there is a health benefit of one or the other. I found that indeed most Dr.'s prefer their patients use liquid soap because of a few reasons:

1. Liquid soap dispensers can be cleaned and are therefore cleaner.
   • Again I was shocked because I thought soap is always clean! Not so according to this article snippet written by a bio student: "I recently did a study on the effectiveness of bar vs. liquid soap in my bio honors class. We made agar plates in sterilized petri dishes. We then brought in bar and liquid soap. We used 1.8 grams of liquid soap and 1.8 grams of bar soap shavings. we washed our hands in the exact same way with the liquid and bar soap. then we touched our hands to the agar and incubated the petri dishes for 48 hours at 37 degrees Celsius which is 98.6 degrees Fahrenheit. We then went back the next Monday and we calculated the percentage of the germs on the plate. The liquid soap had 4% bacteria covering the petri dish the bar was 11% and the control group was 23% of the area of the agar. Which proves that liquid is by far more effective then bar soap.
2. Also people are more likely to use the proper amount when it is dosed to them from either a pump or automatic soap dispenser.
   • I read about the fact that overusing soap and other cleaners can ultimately pollute our water supply and increase our impact on our ecological system! So, trying to stay clean and healthy can actually harm the environment and our health.

There is so much to know about every aspect of how we live our lives. But today's lesson is simply that you should have regular soap in liquid form in soap dispensers on hand for day to day use and antibacterial soap, which you will use properly, on hand for when your hands are likely to have bacteria on them.