Clean, Soap-Free Living: Here Comes the Science

(CC-licensed photograph by Flickr user fdecomite)

Comments are still active on my Boing Boing guest blog post from earlier this month about how I haven't used soap or shampoo for over a year. There is much debate in that comment thread on both sides of the argument (to suds or not to suds).

Commenter Emmalish just pointed out this UNC study [pdf] which would appear to back up my beliefs. The report states:

Effective hand hygiene for high levels of viral contamination with a nonenveloped virus was best achieved by physical removal with a nonantimicrobial soap or tap water alone.

Somewhere in the middle, it also states:

Of all the hand hygiene agents, the most efficacious at reducing MS2 was the handwashing with tap water alone, followed by the nonantimicrobial soap handwash, and the 0.2% benzethonium chloride handwash.

And concludes:

In conclusion, our study shows that, at a short exposure time of 10 seconds, all agents with the exception of handwipes and a 60% ethyl alcohol handrub performed similar to nonantimicrobial and tap water controls with reductions of 1.15 to 2.01 log10 of Serratia marcescens. After 10 episodes, which evaluates the efficacy of agents following multiple episodes of contamination, handwashing agents with 0.75% CHG, 2% CHG, 4% CHG, 1% triclosan, 0.2% benzethonium chloride, nonantimicrobial soap hand-wash, and tap water alone were efficacious ($1.5 log10) in reduction of bacteria.

While this doesn't suggest that everyone should go throw out all their soap, it suggests that the idea soap is needed, required, or is playing an active role in keeping some crazy bacterial outbreak at bay is baseless. Using water alone appears to do the trick just fine - not just in my experience, but in the lab as well.

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Anonymous

Sorry, can’t view pdf.

Was the alcohol and handwipes *more* or *less* effective?

Also law of diminishing returns at work here.

Like many, I feel soap has its place, but industry oversells it. Try getting rid of engine grease without soap, not worth the effort. Daily care for people with cushy western lifestyles, not really necessary. It can even be harmful and drying to the skin, as can the alcohol.
traalfaz

I noticed those articles, and I don’t get how a person can go soap-free, unless they live entirely in buildings/streets and never work on anything dirty, never do any gardening or physical labor, etc.

Personally I get so dirty sometimes that I have to hose myself off before I even go into the house. And I get so greasy working on equipment sometimes that I have to wash 2 or 3 times to get fairly clean.

ISTM that this soap-free movement is largely the creation of people who don’t actually do anything much.
- Anonymous
  
  I think that most people equate soap with germs, not with grease, and so soap-free really refers to “not using soap to deal with germs,” as opposed to not dealing with grease.
Anonymous

While this gives information on virus bacteria removal, and answers some potential safety concerns, this doesn’t speak to dirt, grease, and smell removal. So, no, I don’t think this really says much about it being “clean, soap free living.” That said, I do use minimal soap (I can’t get away w/ none), and often will simply rinse dishes and scrub w/ a brush, rather than clean them with soap, and have no problems….so I’m definitely not saying this as being against your ideas here.
Quiche de Resistance

One of the arguments I hear frequently for this no-soap lifestyle is that human bodies evolved to not use soap and soap messes with the body’s natural self regulation. But do any of you non-soapers take hot showers? I am pretty sure that human beings evolved without the benefit of hot water, so your hot showers are also “unnatural.” In fact, soap may be more “natural” for humans than hot water. A crude form of soap is made by reaction of animal fat with alkali wood ash in cooking fires. There is evidence of early humans using this crude soap, way before there was any such thing as hot showers or baths.
Tunacorn

I have a major issue with this study you’re citing. The non-enveloped virus they are testing is a bacteriophage not an animal virus. It is non-enveloped because it does not infect animal cells. Most viruses we catch are surrounded by a lipid-bilayer. Lipids are not soluble in water, which is why we use soap. Soap is made up of molecules that have one end that is soluble in fats, and one end that is soluble in water. It seems likely to me that if this study was performed with an enveloped virus that you would see a difference in log reductions between the tap water control and an enveloped virus control. While I am certainly against excessive use of soap, especially antimicrobial soap, it would be completely incompetent to not wash your hands with soap regularly if you are sick. I think this study has been cited in a misleading way…
- Unmutual
  
  Damn Tuna you beat me to it.
  
  In the kitchen I mostly use a bar soap on my hands. The real function of this soap is to emulsify w/ your skin’s oil and then flush the germs down the drain, not nuke them with anti-microbial chemicals.
  
  I agree with the common thinking these days that anti-bac soaps are contributing to super resilient bugs, but that doesn’t mean we shouldn’t use soap.
  
  And Sean you’re going down the rabbit hole of woo-woo conversion. Cherry picking scientific articles that support your thesis, preaching anecdotal “it works for me!” stuff, etc. Just be aware.
- Anonymous
  
  This post is full of win. Thank you for posting it.
- Chevan
  
  They note in the paper that they chose their methodology because of its similarity to the standard FDA protocols for evaluating the efficacy of hand hygiene agents.
  
  It’s also very worth noting Figures 2 and 3, where they look at log reductions in gram-negative bacteria. The takeaway for this topic: tap water works pretty well at removing the bacteriophage, which is a stand-in for clinically important viruses. HOWEVER. If you have repeated exposures to bacterial contamination, you really should be washing with antibacterial soap. Also, that’s a log-fold reduction; that 2-unit reduction on the graph over 10 successive exposures and hand-washes for bacteria represents a 100x number difference between water and the most effective antibacterial soap.
  
  I would also stress that this involves exposure to standardized solutions of suspended microbes; real-world exposures are more complex. You’re probably going to be exposed, at least part of the time, to a solid or liquid, probably somewhat sticky, that contains the bacteria, and I doubt water alone is going to be sufficient at removing that.
  
  I’m also hesitant to make any sort of non-tentative conclusions regarding the no-soap issue on this, because this study really wasn’t designed to test no-soap. It was used to test hand hygiene agents, and the no-soap condition was stuck in as a control. Yes, it’s possible to make some conclusions about the data collected on the no-soap condition, but the only thing we can comfortably conclude (or at least that I’m comfortable concluding) is that there’s grounds for further study on no-soap effects.
  - emmalish
    
    Thank you for this insight! When I posted this link in the other thread, I was hoping for someone with a science background to break the data down into something that would make more sense to those of us who aren’t scientists. And I would love to see more actual science regarding the efficacy of soapless washing, rather than people just scoffing and saying “everyone knows you need soap you dirty smelly hippy!” (or words to that effect).
    
    I want to see the science. You say this data is inconclusive? That’s fine â€“ I posted it because it was all I could find. All the articles I could find that referenced it said it was the only major study of its kind. Any scientists out there? Please do another study! Give us more information!
    
    Everything else just reminds me of the commercial that tells us if we don’t clean our kitchen with Brand-X, we may as well just wipe the counters down with a raw chicken breast because that’s the kind of filth we’re surrounded by, UNLESS we use Brand-X. Every time we use the kitchen. Or else we’re disgusting. Yes, I’m cynical about all these “truths” we’re taught. And yes, I do work in advertising. Huh.
    
    That said, if I actually get DIRTY or get something oily or greasy on my hands, yes, I’ll use soap. But every time I wash? No.
    - emmalish
      
      Just wanted to add that that “you” in my post above was general and not aimed at Chevan in particular. Carry on…
  - Tunacorn
    
    I still find their rational for using a bacteriophage to represent human viral pathogens incredibly weak. A protein encapsulated virus will interact with water and soap very differently from a lipid-bilayer enveloped virus (like most human pathogens).
    - Chevan
      
      I get what you’re saying, but judging by their introduction the problems they see with existing literature are the unrealistic washing times in previous studies and the lack of standard methodologies. While the established methodology may not be the most effective (and I have to disclaim that I know nothing on this particular topic), they might have preferred not to invent two new variables at the same time when they could just study one (time of washing).
      - Tunacorn
        
        What your saying makes a lot of sense.
        
        What I am noticing here is an issue with the paper, as well as an issue with its interpretations and citation.
        
        The paper deals with hand washing, and its affect on bacterial and viral concentrations on your hands. I think its fair to say that the bacteriophage M2 is there to generally represent viral pathogens. I believe a phage was used in this study for logistical reasons. A microbiology lab that primarily works with bacteria can easily propagate phage. To propagate an animal virus you would need to cultivate animal cells, most likely requiring new equipment, and certainly new reagents. Unfortunately, by using a phage you may get significantly different results, and give people the impression that certain handwashing methods may or may not be more effective at reducing viral transmission; which is a conclusion that really should not be made. Therefor, it would have been much better for the study to omit the phage reduction experiment.
        
        There then is the issue of improperly using a peer reviewed paper as a source to promote an opinion. This happens all the time, and I think is made easier by studies such as this one which set people up to draw misleading conclusions. I do believe Sean should understand that publishing pieces like this could have a negative effect on peoples health. It is not good to give people the idea that if they have the flu, there is no point in using soap to wash their hands.
      - Chevan
        
        Ah, I see. I apologize, I was misinterpreting your comments.
Emo Pinata

I quit using soap for anything but washing my hands a month ago. Not only do I not stink even with working out my acne cleared up, my skin got softer, and my body hair got a lot softer (odd one). My wife said I actually smell better now than before. I also started tasking hotter showers for some reason.

I still have not entirely gotten rid of shampoo, but I only shampoo about every other day because my vanity prevents me from quitting cold turkey. My hair feels especially better considering I shower multiple times a day from working out.

I still need deodorant, though. Otherwise my pits smell like old onions and spunk.
iCowboy

Just tell me you’re not planning on being a surgeon or a chef.
subhan

Wow, way to mis-state the article conclusions, I normally expect better from boing-boing. 10 seconds after starting into TFA, I see this:
Conclusions: Antimicrobial handwashing agents were the most efficacious in bacterial removal, whereas waterless agents showed
variable efficacy. Alcohol-based handrubs compared with other products demonstrated better efficacy after a single episode of
hand hygiene than after 10 episodes. Effective hand hygiene for high levels of viral contamination with a nonenveloped virus was
best achieved by physical removal with a nonantimicrobial soap or tap water alone. (Am J Infect Control 2005;33:67-77.)
So, antimicrobial soaps are most effective on bacterial removal, whereas water is better for viruses. There are many situations where bacterial contamination is more likely – bathrooms & kitchens being two of them.
- mdh
  
  Have you cited a reference proving that bacterial contamination of your hands is significantly worse than viral contamination? Because you ought to to justify that tone you’re pushing with some actual superiority.
  
  I maintain that virus’ on our hands make us sick, and particular bacteria left to eat our food makes us sick. As a species, I believe we’re supposed to be covered in bacteria, it’s how we evolved – unhealthy flora has to compete with healthy flora – and unhealthy bacteria generally has no advantage in a soap-disturbance free environment.
  
  I’m not offering a citation, but I’m stating my take on the article, and not calling out our hosts.
Phikus

If we get rid of soap, then what kind of box will I stand on for my tirade?
Anonymous

Don’t care. I use soap, love soap, love shampoo, am one of those product-addicted girly girls. I wash my hands constantly. Probably have 10 or so bars of soap around here waiting to be sprung into action: Zum Bar, Lush, double French milled decorative, Dr Bronners, good old Ivory, generic gylercin stuff from the co-op, Mrs Meyers, and in the basement there’s Kirk’s Castile. How can you not love and use soap? It’s just so good! Viva la bubbles!
Anonymous

There is an online community that helps to guide newbies through the issues of No Soap/Shampoo:
http://www.beyondshampoo.com

It is pretty good for getting the basics as well as getting your questions answered. I am surprised at so many people doing this!
andreloja

After reading your post I was very curious and kept investigating online. I am now free of shampoo for sometime!!! Thanks…
ArnoDick

I stopped using soap and I lost fifteen pounds in a week and a half!
Not only that, but I have fulfilled my lifelong dream of never having to talk to anyone ever again, because every person I meet is so jealous of my silky smooth skin and radiant halo that they immediately walk away when I get within smelling distance of them!
sirkowski

Hygiene libertarians: letting the invisible hand of the bacterial free market regulate their stank.
doingdoing

Who knew BB would become the battleground for the soaped vs. the unsoaped? All I gotta say is I’m sure I’d be bald right now if I hadn’t given up SHAM-poo in high school.
pyster

as i said before… the people who dont use soap stink. They might not think so. The sex partners might not think so, but the rest of us can smell you.

And what kinda lives do these people live where they dont get dirt and oil on them? If you work and play hard water alone isnt getting that dirt off, or the smell that comes with it. Or smoke from bars… Sorry… it does not wash out of your hair with just water.

Want to cut down on the amount of soap you use? See carlin’s “whore bath”.
Anonymous

Well, duh–I thought it was common knowledge that it’s the friction and not the soap that removes bacteria that could lead to illness. The issues from that thread that needed a big dollop of science were woo-woo claims like the following:

“when their bodies are producing all kinds of crazy crap to try and overcompensate for the unnatural state they are in most of the time due to the soap”

There’s nothing “unnatural” about soap, and absolutely zero scientific evidence that it leads our bodies to an “unnatural state”. Soap is simply a helpful agent for providing friction during bathing, and–for many–a way of removing the stank. Does your skin get dry and irritated after using soap? Then there’s a reason to not use it. Does your skin get overly greasy without soap, but feels nice and comfy when you use soap (like mine)? Then there’s a reason to use it. Proceed accordingly.

tl;dr: Keep the science coming. Keep the ZOMG CHEMICALZ!!!11! woo-woo stuff out.
- pyster
  
  http://www.edinformatics.com/interactive_molecules/soap.htm
  
  This is how soap works. A cooler exploration of it can be found somewhere in the TV series Connections, available on teh netflix.
  
  My stance is that people do over wash and use too much soap and need to cut back, but that cutting it out completely does not allow for normal lives for people who actually do things that cause them to get dirty to live without being stinky, bacteria ridden, bastards.
  
  Imagine not using soap after cleaning the liter box… Seriously… think about that toxoplasmosis… its mind control and baby killing abilities…
  
  As far as the ‘health’ of skin and hair. We’re all different. Dry skin/hair -vs- oily hair/skin, misc sensitivities, biochemisties… Experiences will vary.
  
  Then we should all consider the fact that we are attracted to and repulsed by the unadulterated funk of others… those you are not chemically attracted to (for lack of a better term) smell and taste foul and no amount of cover up resolves this. Then there are ppl who’s unwashed scents and tastes drive you insane with desire. This may account some of the ‘they dont smell’. I have found people who have no odor at all… I told one girl she was a replicant!
  
  with all that… every time i meet someone who doesnt use soap they smell like ass.
Anonymous

Washing your hands in a public restroom is a bad idea with soap or just water, unless you intend to leave the water running and never leave. The faucet and the doorknob are always soo dirty, much dirtier than your hands. Unless I actually contact body substance or potentially bioharzerdous material, i just use alcohol handrub after exiting the bathroom.
- Anonymous
  
  You can also use a paper towel to push the door.
- Slightly Askew
  Washing your hands in a public restroom is a bad idea with soap or just water, unless you intend to leave the water running and never leave. The faucet and the doorknob are always soo dirty, much dirtier than your hands
  
  You’re doing it wrong
  1. Turn on water
  2. Get hands wet
  3. Get soap on hands
  4. Scrub
  5. Rinse
  6. Grab paper towel (move this to step 2 if towel dispenser is not touchless)
  7. Dry hands
  8. Use paper towel to turn off water
  9. Use paper towel to open door
  10. Throw paper towel in trash can by the door on the way out (or on the floor if there is no trash can…they’ll catch on eventually)
Fred Ochsenhirt

I have just finished research on my study that conclusively demonstrates that pretentious hipsters never tire of telling other people how to live their lives.
- plainsaman
  
  AHHHahahaha, my thoughts exactly!
Shibi

Is it so wrong to want to smell pretty? Damn, I love soap!
- das memsen
  
  No one said it’s wrong to do anything. He’s just offering an alternative to the commonly-held idea of soap. I stopped using shampoo a couple of years ago and now use a 1/2 baking soda 1/2 water mixture. Ever since the first time I tried it, my hair has been cleaner, smoother and stronger. I couldn’t believe how bamboozled I’d been for my entire life into buying shampoo- even the “natural” ones are still full of tons of needless shit. Maybe other people’s heads won’t react the same way, but my wife and I both benefited tremendously from that revelation- not to mention all the plastic, oil and chemicals we are no longer buying into simply by not using shampoo and conditioner (I use a 1 part apple cider vinegar to 6 parts water solution, with orange and lemon peels floating in it for weeks to remove the vinegar smell.)
  
  Point being, there’s other ways to live, and they just might have benefits we’re overlooking. I’ve been trying the soap-free thing for a few weeks now. Maybe I do smell more, but so far I haven’t seen / heard / smelt any evidence of it. The environmental benefits, to me, are worth way more than any perceived social benefits- and I do live in the city! But I realize every body is different, and I am not a naturally sweaty-smelly person to begin with. I also have a pretty healthy diet, which is a huge factor in your odor.
MissMarnie

To the author, will you please please please add a correction to your post explaining that your original post is a misrepresentation of the findings in the study and that this report does not, in any way, support your conclusion that not using soap is a scientifically based solution to personal hygiene?

Boing Boing is well respected as a resource and gets a huge amount of traffic and not correcting an assumption like this reflects poorly on Boing Boing and may lead someone to mistakenly believe that simply rubbing his or her hands under running water is sufficient to safely clean one’s hands before, say, preparing meals.

Most of us (myself included) are not skilled in reading studies and many people don’t bother to slog through comments, but it seems clear that your initial assertion is a misrepresentation based on the very useful feedback from other commenters.
- das memsen
  
  I agree with your sentiment, but the truth is boing boing is full of examples like this, where the blog post says one thing but the truth is much less [pick one] exciting, controversial, inflated… why, just last week we were told that the media exaggerated the plastic problem in the ocean simply because some assistant professor somewhere didn’t see what she was expecting to see in the water.
  
  It’s our responsibility as citizens in an age of easily-manipulated information to not believe anything we read or watch until we do more research on it. Find out “the truth” is harder and harder, despite all our advanced tools.
  - MissMarnie
    
    You are right, we all have to be responsible for doing our best to track down reliable information and people who take any post that confirms their bias, as truth and ignores the rest, has only themselves to blame for being mislead (I’m looking at you, Jenny McCarthy). But I don’t understand why anyone would decline to correct a false statement in their post if they have the ability. Surely he would have corrected a typo if one were found. There’s nothing shameful in correcting a mistake.
Anonymous

I also quietly embarked on a no soap experiment after reading the post a few weeks ago. So far nobody complains about stank (and I think my family would happily do so) and the dry itchy skin I always get in winter has utterly disappeared.
Still using deodorant, and handwashing with soap, and yes I have a desk job (albeit with bike commute). But daily showers just with chlorinated city hot water seems to work for me. YMMV.
Anonymous

Conclusions: Antimicrobial handwashing agents were the most efficacious in bacterial removal, whereas waterless agents showed
variable efficacy…..yeah, first page.
Flying_Monkey

Sean, perhaps you should have run that study past fellow BB contributor, Maggie, before posting. She understands how to read scientific findings. Unfortunately, as others have pointed out, you misunderstand what is being reported.

I have no problem with people taking whatever personal position they want, provided they aren’t harming others. But please, please, please, don’t try to make what is basically a personal preference sound ‘sciencey’. It’s just ex-post facto rationalisation, and it doesn’t… err… wash.
Godfree

To Anon@58: a couple drops of an essential oil (like lemongrass, not too floral) in your baking soda container will add some fragrance and might make your SO think you used a commercial soap product.
humblefactory

Ive been following this thread as it has emerged over the past few months, and I think a common science-related problem is developing: The assumption of an all-or-nothing application of the soapless principle. A personal — and therefore, not statistically significant — story of mine helps to explain. If I wash my hair every day, I find that it gets very dry and dandruffy (even with good quality conditioner). This is the “too much soap” condition. If I only wash my hair once every two weeks, it doesn’t get dry, but it still gets irritated, even itchy, and feels uncomfortable (not to mention looking scuzzy). This is the no-soap condition. Both conditions suck.

So, I employ a mixed strategy. Washing my hair in warm water (which dissolves more oily gunk) and conditioning with a cool water rinse (which seals in more moisturizer) every other day, seems to be optimal for my scalp. I would imagine that similar, variable rules would apply to bodies.

Bodies (and the clothes they wear) are so complicated that simple hand-washing studies are unlikely to translate well to “you’re going to stink or not”. The suggestion that soap isn’t always necessary for hygiene is provocative. But history pretty much decimates that one – soap helps colonies of people live much closer together, and re-use clothes without spreading diseases. Period.

However, as far as stinkiness goes, there is probably a good mixed strategy you could use.
- JamesMason
  
  I agree with humblefactory – moderation is the watchword, not an extremist position on either side. I wear my hair very short (crew/flattop cut) and rarely wash it. That’s why I have it that way, so I don’t have to deal with it for it to look good. However, I wash my face every morning with hand soap, because if I don’t, it feels greasy.
  
  I honestly don’t get the proselytizing – obviously soap companies are trying to get you to use more, but the answer is not to use NONE, it’s to use less.
Anonymous

(Anon because I can’t find my friggin’ cheat sheet with all my ‘secondary’ passwords; I go by Hmpf when I do log in.)

I’ve been watching these recurring discussions with some anthropological interest, and one question has been bothering me for a while now, so I’ve decided to ask:

@ all the people who claim “I don’t care what you soapless people think or say about your lack of B.O., I *know* all people who go soapless stink.” – How exactly do you know that? I mean, do you ask everybody you encounter if they use soap? What about all the people you meet who don’t stink? Do you ask them about their hygiene habits, or do you just *assume* that everybody who doesn’t smell must be using soap? And if you *don’t* ask the non-smelly people about their (potential lack of) soap use, how can you really be sure that there aren’t people who go soapless among them?
Anonymous

“it suggests that the idea soap is needed, required, or is playing an active role in keeping some crazy bacterial outbreak at bay is baseless.”

As one of the authors in the cited study, perhaps you should note that we concluded the opposite of this statement. I leave it to the author of this dubious summary to conclude whether a retraction of their conclusion would be in the better interests of the health of society.
Ito Kagehisa

The tap water at our house has bacteria in it. I know this because I had it tested when I bought the property. We have nice sturdy immune systems at our house.

I use soap to wash off motor oil, dirt, and various other sorts of filth, because I don’t like leaving handprints on everything I touch, and because petroleum and arsenic make cheeseburgers taste funny.

Most soap leaves a film behind that can cause skin problems. But if you’ve already got stuff all over your hands (something that happens to me every day) that’s hardly an issue.
Anonymous

traalfaz hit the nail on the head, which is also what i replied to ur last post. any urban office schlurp can probably get away with just having a shower every now and then since the only workout u do is in the gym or running to catch the train..

if u work in a coalmine or on the fields u would probably reconsider ur no soap theory….
lyd

I would also like to see Maggie get involved in this conversation.
Anonymous

Another experiment along these lines: never washing your jeans.

http://www.cbc.ca/canada/calgary/story/2011/01/20/consumer-jeans-study.html
Anonymous

Not washing with soap is like not getting your kids immunized.

It’s not so dangerous, as long as NEARLY EVERYBODY ELSE believes in soap and vaccines.

But if everybody abandoned soap, it’d be just as dangerous as if everybody abandoned vaccines.

(Personally, I don’t use shampoo, and I usually use the Carlin method in the shower, but I ALWAYS wash my hands with soap. I brush and floss, too. It’s common courtesy while living in society, and especially if you want to get intimate with another human being.)
Anonymous

It’s been just over a week with no soap or shampoo. Just hot water. Not only do I NOT stink, the washcloth does not get smelly as it usually does. The acne on my scalp has gone away. My hair feels slightly more oily than it usually does. Just different, not bad. I also cycle every day. I AM still using deodorant.
HD

But isn’t tap water full of chlorine and perhaps in some areas fluoride?
- Emo Pinata
  
  It would have both, but neither would harm your skin…
mementomori116

This post provides a dangerous misrepresentation of the article at hand. Thank you for providing a link to the pdf so that we can easily see how out-of-context these claims are– yes, traditional antimicrobial agents are often inefficacious against viruses, yeasts, and other non-bacterial pathogens (which is why they’re often referred to as antibacterial agents), but that doesn’t mean that they aren’t a critical part of the hygiene necessary to prevent the transmission of many pathogenic microorganisms.

The informed conclusion to draw from these data are that careful handwashing should be conducted with both soap and water.

I am not opposed to your premise that soap is overused, but your decision to twist the scientific evidence to support your claim has seriously undermined its validity in my mind.

I’ve come to expect a better quality of journalism from BB.
-_-

It’s been over 20 years since I basically gave up using soaps.
I use hand soap if I’ve been doing something greasy (working on a car) or nasty (cleaning up baby poop) but that’s about it.
I bathe with hot water and a wash cloth.
I don’t use antiperspirant but I do use deodorant.
I get sick less often than the people around me but I can’t tell you if it’s related to not using soap.
I don’t seem to ever get skin blemishes either but that could be age/genetics (luck of the draw I guess).

In short, 20 years without soap, and happy :)
elbrucio

It’s interesting, but doesn’t seem to support other issues of the no-soap lifestyle. At no point does the study mention anything about odor in connection to the various hand-cleaning methods.

Which is kind of the thing people notice about you when you stop using soap for your hygiene.

I’ll also point out that hands aren’t known for their sebaceous or apocrine sweat glands. You know, those glands that make our heads oily and our armpits and other bits smelly.
Anonymous

I’d like to ask a question to those that are going without soap. Do any of you wash with well water or is everyone using city water? I am curious as used to work in water treatment, and in the U.S., a chlorine residiual is required in tap water. This is to ensure that the water stays disinfected from the treatment plant to your home tap. The actual amount of chlorine left when the water gets to your tap will vary depending on your distance from the water treatment plant, the condition of the pipes along the way, the time of the year, etc. In effect, tap water is a very weak bleach solution. I wonder if success with going no soap is correlated with the chlorine levels in the tap water? As an aside, I’d bet that different places on the water system have different spectrums of non-pathogenic bacteria, and so when colonize yourself with them (by washing with water alone) I wonder if they produce different odors? Has anyone noticed that a particular area of the country or of a particular city had more success with the no soap regime?
- Antinous / Moderator
  
  My tap water is unchlorinated because it comes from a deep aquifer. I’m on the modified no-soap plan and it works just fine.
  - Anonymous
    
    I wonder if it would be worth experimenting with sending one of your friends (someone with which the no soap switch isn’t working) a couple of gallons of your well water to use as a final rinse to see if that would help. The population of microbes in well water can vary alot, and I wonder if you have a “good” population in terms of producing stinky byproducts. Another idea might be sending some skin scrapings, or something along those lines. Perhaps you have a good population of bacteria that can be transferred? Maybe you could start a business! Let my microbes colonize your body for the win!
ultranaut

I stopped using shampoo after reading that article. It’s working out pretty well actually. I was concerned about dandruff, an on-going problem throughout my life. I’ve not recorded my observations, but it seems like after the first week or two I was less prone to dandruff overall, but when it happens I have more than I typically did in the past. It’s a fair trade for me, especially because I feel comfortable washing my hair more frequently now. With shampoo I couldn’t wash it more than once every few days without it feeling “damaged” somehow. Now it’s soft all the time, doesn’t get frizzy, and generally behaves itself better.

I tried to stop using soap but gave up on that experiment for now. Since I discovered in my teens that using it on my face regularly made my skin very unhappy I’ve typically only used it in a few key places. Beyond those places I only use it under specific circumstances.
steeroy

@pyster “as i said before… the people who dont use soap stink”
&
@Shibi “Is it so wrong to want to smell pretty? Damn, I love soap!”

Soap doesn’t stop you smelling bad and it doesn’t make you smell nice. Any fragrance from the soap fades away within an hour and you’re left smelling like a person. After that you will either start to stink or not, depending on whether you use deodorant.

I’m sorry pyster, but whatever you say, _you_can_not_ tell the difference between someone who washed with soap and then applied deodorant and someone who washed with water and applied deodorant.
- pyster
  
  Sorry, yes, I can…
  
  Some smells are from bacteria… such as arm pits… Water -vs- no fragrance soap… One removes the source of the stink and the stink, and the other does not. The smoke trapped on your hair? It’s bonded to the oils… Water alone does not get that out.
  
  I wouldnt let these disgusting people ever fix food for me.
  
  And this idea that it is friction that remove bacteria someone else noted… christ… my head exploded.
TheMadLibrarian

Regardless of how you feel about using soap, deodorant, shampoo, etc. there are times when it is functionally necessary to be cleaner than a simple sluice of water will provide. You should seriously consider using soap whenever your personal hygiene standards will affect someone else. I don’t imagine soapless is too popular in food service industries, medical professions, or any other job where bad smells are generated.
Camp Freddie

Balance in all things. Use enough soap to remove greasy crap from your skin. Don’t cover yourself in it 3x a day.

Adjust based on your personal skin characteristics and your degree of exposure to greasy crap.

I get eczema. My skin is made much worse if excessively dry (using too much soap) and is also made worse when greasy (bacteria build up in greasy skin and eventually infect some eczema-damaged area).
The answer is just to not use much soap and not wash too often or too rarely.
Anonymous

Don’t most hand washing studies talk about “proper” hand washing where you rub your hands under the faucet for as long as it takes to sing Happy Birthday? Isn’t the major cleaning action in this case the scrubbing of the hands, releasing particles into the water, which flows away?

If so, is it really fair to say that you can practically scrub the entirety of your body as vigorously as your hands for that long? If not, then how does it make any sense at all to draw a parallel between body washing and hand washing?
Chevan

Also, from a historical perspective, widespread hand-washing with soap has been an incredibly influential and effective public health tool for controlling the spread of disease. That alone is enough for me to say soap is worth it.
lasertronic

I haven’t touched soap in a couple months (except handwashing). And I have to say that the results have been really startling. My Psoriasis is about 90% gone (I had it pretty severely on my scalp and had been using strong and terribly expensive steroid meds which I have since given up) and I haven’t had a breakout on my face at all (I also stopped using any expensive moisturizers). Also I am an active person who runs nearly every day and works frighteningly long hours not in an office so to those who think this is for inactive people that is just not accurate in my case. I’m sure its not for everyone, but its working great for me!
Sean Bonner

I’m happy to admit that I’m not a scientist nor do I play one on TV. A bunch of people sent me the study citing the same parts of it so when I looked at it I was making sure what they were talking about was actually in there. Also, worth noting is this seems to be focused more on handwashing, where as I’ve been saying I never stopped using soap for hand washing. The interesting bit I think is that they do seem to to have found that washing with just water is effective, something some folks have suggested isn’t possible.
- Chevan
  
  One of the issues I have is with what you said in your original post:
  
  “it suggests that the idea soap is needed, required, or is playing an active role in keeping some crazy bacterial outbreak at bay is baseless.”
  
  The paper suggests nothing of the sort. There is nothing in the paper that leads to that conclusion, but presenting this article the way you’re doing gives your arguments the seeming weight of science when that isn’t the case. You would need a sizable epidemiological study to make that conclusion with any sort of certainty, not a technical paper on hand-washing methods.
  
  In order to make that conclusion you would need a great deal of other data on the range of infectious doses of bacteria and viruses, the likelihood that the deficit in microbe removal will lead to delivery of an infectious dose to the host, and some sort of spread model to gauge whether that increased host infection probability is likely to cause sustained transmission.
  
  None of that data is in the paper.
sworm

Confirmation bias is a wonderful thing. Cherry picking one study tells us nothing.
Anonymous

This is a bit OT, but does anybody have a very-easy-to-understand way to explain antibiotic resistance to someone who is completely scientifically illiterate? (And not well schooled to begin with?)
- Chevan
  
  I can give it a shot. I’m not sure exactly what you mean by scientifically illiterate, so please don’t take it the wrong way if I start off too simply.
  
  It starts with what cells are. One of the easiest ways to think of it is as a plastic bag full of water, except there’s a whole bunch of other stuff in there that for this discussion we don’t need to worry about.
  
  Okay, so we have the plastic bag. We need to give it some support, because in reality cells are much more fragile than plastic bags are. We can do this in a couple ways. One way is to string together fibers and attach them to the interior of the bag sort of like a skeleton. Pretty much every cell does this. Or we can build a thick outer coat like a solid wall. Lots of cells do this, like plants and some bacteria.
  
  So. The things that actually do work in cells are called enzymes. They’re like little machines that can react with molecules in the cell. Also, enzymes are TINY, but the cell makes a bunch of them.
  
  Actually, it’s hard to talk about this without some visual reference. Tell you what, give this a watch. It might help to skip to about 2:00. About 95% of this video is going to be jargon that’s way way too complicated to get into here, but I’m linking it because it does a great job of describing the scale of enzymes versus molecules. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MMrvmZ2i1sE
  
  Anyway. If you just think about enzymes as tiny little spherical machines that do things in the cell, that’l suffice. They take care of everything; they replicate DNA, they create new compounds, they break down other compounds, they interact with other enzymes, they build new cellular components, and the list goes on.
  
  That last one – building new cellular components – is actually key for antibiotics. Basically, the idea of antibiotics is that if you interfere with the enzymes that perform some critical function to the cell, the cell either can’t replicate or dies.
  
  Take penicillin, for example. I’ll use ‘penicillin’ throughout this, but the same principles apply to most antibiotics. Penicillin works because the chemical that is penicillin has a certain arrangement of atoms that interferes with the enzyme that builds cell walls. A lot of bacteria have a certain enzyme that’s necessary to create the parts that make up cell walls, but if the enzyme binds penicillin it can’t make the cell wall component. The bacteria needs the cell wall for support (remember the plastic bag? Imagine if it was so flimsy you could break it by touching it), so if it can’t make more cell wall it’s not going to live long.
  
  That’s a pattern you’ll see in most antibiotics. They disrupt the cell by interfering with an enzyme.
  
  So, on to antibiotic resistance. Enzymes are, by and large, specific to what molecules they can interact with. There’s a lot of chemistry tied up in it, but all you have to know is that many enzymes can only interact easily with at most a handful of different things. So in antibiotic resistance, you have a mutation of an enzyme. These mutations happen spontaneously all the time at low rates. Usually they don’t amount to anything, because the mutation either is harmful to the cell because it breaks an enzyme or doesn’t have any effect at all. However, you can get useful mutations. What happens in antibiotic resistance is that a mutation spontaneously occurs that allows some enzyme (there are LOTS of enzymes this can happen to, it’s not just one) to react with penicillin in a way that destroys the special arrangement of atoms that interferes with the cell’s enzymes.
  
  Imagine you had a door in your house that was locked all the time, and you wanted it to stay locked. Now imagine someone had a key to that door and could open it any time they wanted. Now imagine that you discover one day that you can take a wrench you use to fix your car and use it to break the key. And in the future, you can break any new keys that people bring in. The key is antibiotics; breaking the key is antibiotic resistance.
  - Anonymous
    
    Chevan, that was awesome. That will definitely help as I cook up my own version (which I want to have almost no words). Our nanny — educated in the US — wouldn’t understand a tenth of that. What she does do is abandon penicillin treatments after three days because they’re not working and then say that the Chamomile tea was was really kicked the infection on day 4 or 5.
    
    I should have explained that scientifically illiterate means “believes that looking at an eclipse while pregnant can burn your fetus and cause it to abort” and “cutting your nails while you’re sick is a bad idea.”
    
    So, I need to cut to the chase and not try to explain the difference between viruses and bacteria (you didn’t, but it would be lost on her anyway) and condense everything to three images on a 3×5 card. Or the eyes will glaze over.
    
    Despite all of this, she is a terrific nanny.
    
    Here is another datum: I haven’t used soap or shampoo since the first article, have been sick for the past 21 days — even bed-bound for 2 — and am now suffering through my first sinus infection ever. But the skin on my elbows is soft!
Random Royalty

There is some evidence against ascepticizing in particular where biological transformation is desired, e.g. in the making of cheese or in sourdough cultures, sake and lambic beers.

The idea behind this is that in certain processes the biological agents are acting in symbiosis that prevents undesireable cultures from forming and making things taste funny or smell bad or even harmful. Generally this is a combination of a bacteria, a yeast or a fungus (or all three in the case of sake).

In raw milk cheeses you will never see listeriosis, but this pathogen is a huge problem in cheese manufacturing where they use pasteurized milk. Pasteurizing the milk opens up a window of opportunity for undesireable micro-organisms to establish. By the same argument any craft brewer knows you have to get the yeast growing fast to avoid contamination by undesireable airborne yeasts and bacteria (and if you could see what was in the air you would be thoroughly disgusted).

While I can’t say for sure, I suspect that if someone gives up soap and still smells bad it probably means they don’t have the right balance of micro-organisms living on them…and need a probiotic inoculation (of what I don’t know).

What I can say from personal experience is after partially giving up soap and shampoo upon recommendation by a dermatologist (still use soap on the naughty bits and shampoo every week) my skin problems have all but disappeared.
jonathanpeterson

I was interested enough in Sean’s claims from Jan 4th that I TRIED it instead of dismissing it.

I haven’t used soap on my body for the past 2 weeks – but do use a standard deodorant. My wife and son, who have never shrunk from comments about my personal hygiene in the past, haven’t said a word. FWIW – during that entire time, I’ve been doing an hour long bootcamp workout at 6am before coming home to shower. If I was going to stink – I’d have stunk. My milage may vary come Atlanta summertime, however.

From a process perspective, I’ve always washed my hands in the shower first (and then put soap on the shaving mirror to stop fogging), which I still do. I’m using a bit hotter water for some reason and am using the same shaving creme and an emollient aftershave that I always used.

I tried skipping shampoo, but my hair felt dirty and scalp itchy after only a couple days. I have cut my shampoo use drastically though – using about 1/2 what I used to use and only shampooing every other day.

Worth noting that I have a light case of seborhetic dermatitis on my scalp, which is MUCH better since cutting soap use.

I still wash my hands with soap and hot water before preparing food or if they get greasy/dirty working on something. As for virus removal, I find that I don’t use anything other than hands for picking my nose or shoveling food in my mouth so I’m not too concerned. If I were covered with open sores, I supposed I’d go with soap there too.
- das memsen
  
  My friend, you seem like a perfect candidate for the wonders of baking soda.
  
  hair- it works better than any shampoo i’ve ever used. 50/50 bakingsoda to water mixture, just shake vigorously and rub on head. Some people say it takes a few tries, but with me it was an instant difference. Way cheaper, way simpler, way better for the planet. Reuse old shampoo bottle indefinitely!
  
  arm pits- if you still use deodorant, try just rubbing dry baking soda into the pits. “Kills odors instantly” does not fail here. Deodorant just covers up the odors, but baking soda really does neutralize them, and it allows you to sweat still and do all the things your body wants to do naturally. It works so much better, and, again, is cheaper, etc.
  
  I feel like starting a baking soda religion, I am such a convert. Plus it’s a good household cleaner, toothpaste (in a pinch)…
Gloster

I’ll use the opportunity to serve as another data point in the sample.
I, inspired by the original BB post, have also stopped using shampoo (totally) and soap (mostly; none on my body, some on my hands) and I’ve had this going on for a bit more then a year.
My skin is doing fine, perhaps a little better then before and I have not experienced any fluctuations in body odor, positive or negative. (Which might actually be considered a development for the better, as I became a lot more physically active in the last 6 months or so.)
The experience with my hair has been mixed. I definitely cannot say that it has improved dramatically or outwardly noticeably. I think it’s about as greasy as it was when I started and there was no sudden change after an occasional shampooing at the barbers. One definite improvement is that my hair gets a lot less messy in the morning and it’s become much easier to get it to a passable shape (previously it would stay the way it was when I woke up, unless I washed it or at least go it wet). I also think that my balding slowed down a bit, although I’m not sure there is any connection.
On the other hand I seem to be having more trouble with dandruff (nothing really dramatic, but still) and an occasional itch of the scalp.

One thing I have to say, once you get into it, there is no real motivation to get back to soap & co. Ceteris paribus, this saves you money and some hassle. And I suppose you can even feel a bit better about your environmental footprint.
Also, a prospect of spending a week camping in the woods or any other such contingency is a lot less scary from the hygienic point of view.

So there you have it. We’ll need just a couple thousand more volunteers and more rigorous methodology to get something valuable out of this experiment.
Anonymous

She Blinded Me With Science
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2IlHgbOWj4o
mementomori116

No go, Sean. You concluded “While this doesn’t suggest that everyone should go throw out all their soap, it suggests that the idea soap is needed, required, or is playing an active role in keeping some crazy bacterial outbreak at bay is baseless. Using water alone appears to do the trick just fine – not just in my experience, but in the lab as well.”

This conclusion is a strict misrepresentation of the study, which emphasized the need for soap to control the spread of bacterial pathogens such as E coli, Psuedomonas, and Staphylococcus (see the top of pg 73 and Fig. 3 for reference).
travtastic

I have to shower with lava soap, because I wipe my ass with my bare hands, having rejected toilet paper.

I also (like most non-blogging Americans) come home from work every day covered in dirty engine oil from head to toe. And there’s no way that plain water would get those five pounds of rhino turd off of my thighs. Come on! Do you guys work in hazmat suits all day long? I have to use a plunger on the shower drain nightly, what with all the greasy gravel stuck to my naked body!

I don’t know what these guys are talking about, no soap. They must stink all the time.
Daemon

Er… soap actually isn’t for getting rid of bacteria or viruses. Never was. It’s for getting rid of oil and the like.
Anonymous

I stopped using soap and shampoo after I read the original post. Nothing negative to report. Not stinky, not feeling greasy. I’m enjoying the shorter showers. I do still use soap in my bunghole (as LBJ would say) however. It’s quite hairy and often can be a little pooey if I had a particularly soft stool that day.
Anonymous

My biggest problem in even experimenting with this soap free, aluminum-deodorant-laden free, shampoo free lifestyle has been my significant other, who feels the entire endeavor is too “granola”, is “baseless” and largely regards it as bad science being subjugated to the will of environmentalist hippies. I was shocked to hear such things. Her complaint is largely with the idea of not using soap while showering, and nothing to do with the actual results. Granted, not every aspect of the soap-free lifestyle (namely armpit sweat glands) was pleasant, but I noticed a marked difference in the glossiness, cleanliness, and sheen of my hair. I appreciated the way water alone cleaned my body. But the idea that my personal life would be affected was too much to bear–I was forced to go back to soaping, peer pressure (and the potential decline in intimacy) was too much to bear. Any techniques of suggestions for maintaining, or experimenting, with such endeavors without making it a secret?
retrojoe

After reading the previous article I gave up shampoo every other day until this past Sunday when I gave it up entirely. A morning scrub in a hot shower is all I’ve done. While not a significant amount of time my hair is noticeably softer, more manageable and even less greasy (but, emphatically, not dry) than it was yesterday and the day before that. All despite the very dry Wisconsin winter, which typically wreaks havoc on my scalp despite using a variety of specialty shampoos and soaps. FWIW; I have a somewhat long in the front early 60s haircut (think Don Draper)for those who might think I’m talking about a crew cut.

I doubt I’ll give up soap for the neck down but I don’t see returning to shampoo any time soon.
pidg

If I take a dump, then wash my hands with just water, my hands still smell like shit (well, I presume they do, etc etc). Is that more hygienic than washing them with soap?

I DON’T GET IT!
Anonymous

I read these bits a few weeks ago, and about three weeks back, I thought “what the hell” and decided to give it a try. I telecommute so there was really no risk of stinking someone out of the vicinity if it didn’t go well.

I have to say… so far, so good. I’m really kind of stunned how good. There were times between showers that the pits could get rather pungent; I haven’t changed my overall habits but I have yet to have one of “those” days. And I used to deal with dandruff a fair bit – especially in the eyebrow area. At this point, it’s takes a good bit of effort, scratching at my eyebrows, to illicit any flaky evidence.

There’s another bit that I’m surprised about, but as it’s a wee bit uber-personal, I’ll just say I’m happy with the change and leave it at that. :/

If you’re able and so inclined, I say, give it a whirl for a week or two. It may be a body-chemistry thing; it works better for some, awful for others. You’ll never know where you are on that spectrum ’til you try.
Anonymous

This cited study is interesting to me for the following reasons:

My wife and I home-school our kids, which are 9 and 11 years old. This fall we started learning/teaching microbiology in a greater depth, and I made a fairly significant investment in science lab equipment for doing so.

Anyway, one thing we did was a hand-washing experiment. We enlisted the help of the kids friends so we got lots of samples. We had the kids all do lots of “yucky” things – rub their hands all over door knobs, carpets, tile floor in the bathroom, dirt and sand outside, the steering wheel of the car – etc.. lots of bacteria contact.

We then separated into groups of people who: a) did no hand washing, b) washed with mild bar-soap, c) washed with anti-bacteria soap, d) used hand-sanitizer and e) washed with only water.

We then used swabs to collect all the remaining bacteria and junk off of our hands, and transfer it into a petri dish with agar (bacteria food), and left it to grow for a few days.

We were very surprised to find out that washing with water only was very nearly equivalent in effectiveness (removing bacteria) as washing with the mild soap was. Also we found no statistical difference between the bar soap (dove, I think) and the anti-bacterial soap, and the hand-sanitizer.

This made us think there were flaws in our experiment, since our hypothesis wasn’t met (we assumed that the anti-bacterial soap and/or hand sanitizer would be significantly better).

So we did the experiment a second time, and got the same results.
Fagerberg

I have tried going no soap for 11 months.

My hair always felt greasy even tho it sorta looked OK after a couple of weeks, and I had a huge amount of dandruff when I finally stopped and went back to Shampoo, before this I have never had dandruff before. So based only on my own experience I would suggest people use shampoo – tho now I only use it every other day.

For the rest of the body I never had any problems not using soap, in fact it seems to improve the feel of my skin so I cannot recommend this enough. While I do use soap when hand washing, after washroom breaks, I very rarely use soap when bathing.