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Monday, April 16, 2012

Vicki's First Blog


So, Bob is working hard at getting the business of Full Cycle Soap off the ground.  He has wanted to start a blog for some time now and since he refers to me as his “verbyologist”, I have agreed to give it a try. As my husband of 43 years, I know Bob well and actually take this as a compliment. Interestingly, I don’t read blogs but he assures me that it is just like talking about any subject I choose and I can do that. As I was picking an empty hand sanitizer bottle out of the trash at church this morning (we like to recycle pump bottles by filling them with our soapand giving them to friends) I got to thinking about how much I dislike the current trend of spreading antibacterial products all over everything. I particularly dislike the over use of hand sanitizers, and antibacterial soaps & body washes. Ah, a good blog topic for a soap web site blog.
I thought that, perhaps, if I was going to give my opinion, I should do a little research and see if I could back it up. I started with some simple searches on Wikipedia. It didn’t take long to determine that my thinking was fairly sound.

Hand sanitizer was the simplest. It really is just alcohol. This is meant to kill bacteria, which it does, good & bad. Now I am not against this product in all cases. Limited use in public places probably doesn’t hurt. Sanitizer does no known harm to the environment but it sure does dry the skin. Hence the need for a good glycerin based hand soapto restore the moisture robbed by the sanitizer. 

Antibacterial products are another story. Again, these products kill bacteria, good and bad. There is inconclusive data that antibacterials are a factor in creating antibiotic resistant super bugs. We know that these products don’t kill 100% so the concern that the “bugs” left behind are the strong resistant “bugs” is a valid concern, at least for the bad “bugs”. Also, these products do little against viruses. The main concern is that antibacterial products often contain two chemicals in higher than preservative concentrations. One is triclosan, the other is triclocarbon. I am not going to go into all the aspects of these chemicals but there are some well grounded concerns. It would be good to search and read a bit about these, especially if you use these products on your children. (Do the words endocrine disruption make you nervous?)  Even further, especially for those concerned about natural products, these chemicals have a negative effect on the environment (aquatic bacteria and fish) and most probably, when mixed with chlorinated water, produce carcinogens. 

Basically, there is no clear evidence that using antibacterial soaps or hand sanitizer for general use reduces the spread of common sickness any better than proper washing with soap and water. And, even though not fully substantiated, there are a number of health and environmental concerns about the widespread use of these products. So, why not stick with using a good, moisturizing, grease cutting, all natural product like Full Cycle Soap? I see no reason.

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