Soap Vs Shower Gel – The Truth!
Whatever happened to our beloved soap bars? Replaced by a plethora of bottles and pots of liquids covering every hue of the rainbow, it seems trusty old soap has had its day. Are we a nation of liquid soap junkies? Perhaps, but should we be? No, says Dr Gero Baiarda, Primary Care Dermatologist & Private GP at GPDQ, the UK’s first doctor-on-demand app. Here are his five reasons to avoid adding to the UK’s plastic problem with liquid shower gels, and still achieve exactly the same levels of cleanliness armed only with a humble bar of soap.
- Soap bars are better at their job than shower gels
Bars of soap were often accused with some justification of stripping moisture from the skin and causing it to dry out. In the 70s and 80s especially, the composition of bar soap was made more complicated than it needed to be as they became mass-produced and synthetic colours and perfumes were added. However, traditional soap manufacture is a clean process based on the processing of natural plant oils to leave pure soap and glycerin molecules only.
Soap made in this traditional method is extremely unlikely to dry out your skin and is usually transparent. It also does not pollute our water supplies, fill our marine life with microbeads and affect our hormone level and antibiotic efficacy.
Bar soaps are often more effective at removing dirt, oil and odours because of the components they are made of. Containing sodium lauryl sulfate and other antibacterial products, bar soaps are often the best way to get your skin clean.
Most bar soaps also contain glycerin, which is good for people with dermatological problems like eczema.
- Soap bar labelling is transparent – no cons or scams
Most liquid soap products are scamming the masses by marketing themselves as ‘luxury’ brands when they do the same job as a bar of soap, but not as good. Shower gel manufacturers advertise their products as revitalising foams, honey shower milks and rebalancing body experiences. However, you will struggle to find a shower gel that admits what it is really intended for: as a way of removing dirt, sweat and grease.
The secret of shower gel’s success lies in the fact that while they are cheap to manufacture, they are easy to brand as a luxury. By selling them as modern, convenient and indulgent, they have won the hearts of Brits, as 200?million bottles are sold in the UK each year.
This is quite the opposite for a simple bar of soap – the labelling is clear and concise, and very rarely do the manufacturers make a fuss about fancy ingredients or fragrances to give soap users that luxury feel. For example, they wouldn’t boast about their plant extracts which actually have very little practical purpose and are just for marketing purposes so that the gels can have fancy names.
- Soap bars are more environmentally-friendly
In this new age of plastic awareness, we need to recognise that the environmental impact of bars of soap is extraordinarily less than liquid soap, and embrace the soapbar again. Bars clearly contribute far less packaging waste to landfills than bottles of liquid soap, which is obvious when you compare the tiny amount of waxed paper covering your average soapbar to the rigid and decomposition-resistant plastic of liquid soap bottles.
Liquid soap has additional packaging such as bottles and pump dispensers, which increases the cost. The packaging is not environmentally friendly if not recycled. You might waste a little water getting the liquid soap out the bottle or you might wash some of the soap away before you have had a chance to use it depending on if you are washing your hands or in the shower.
The benefits of switching back seem even more apparent when you analyse the ingredients of liquid soap.
- Soap bars aren’t full of random chemicals
Liquid soap is petroleum-based detergent, and therefore comes from exactly the same process as the one that puts petrol in your car. To this already less than appealing base product, chemicals such as preservatives and parabens, surfactants and phthalates are added. These chemicals have long been suspected to pollute our waterways and even have detrimental effects on our hormone levels. Soap bars look increasingly innocent in comparison. Many liquid soaps are also anti-bacterial, and there is growing concern that they are contributing to the epidemic of antibiotic resistance.
Also, for people who are allergic to fragrances, bar soaps can be the most convenient option; there are many bar soaps on the market that are fragrance-free. Fragrance-free liquid soaps, on the other hand, are a little harder to find.
- Soap bars are better value than shower gels
Generally, a bar of soap lasts longer and costs the equivalent of a few pence a week, compared to a bottle of shower gel which costs anything between £1 to £100 and can easily run out after a week, plus you could waste a quarter of the bottle without even using it because they’re so easy to spill. What’s worse is that more than eight out of ten people wash themselves with gels costing up to £4 a bottle.
Since soap does the same job (if not better), is longer-lasting and cheaper, on most occasions, we can safely say that it provides better value than shower gels – especially for those savvy mums or grandmothers trying to grab the best bargain!
Soap bars and bacteria – the truth
“But bars of soap are icky and covered in germs!” I hear millennials across the country cry (including my teenagers). This is both true and untrue – longstanding research going back as far as 1988 shows that although bacteria can be present on bars of soap, they are likely to be washed away immediately when invigorated with water, and therefore, the chance of them causing you any harm is extremely low.
My conclusion
I have returned to bar soap, natural deodorants and old fashioned safety razors in the last six months, and the only change I have noticed is that the bin in the bathroom is no longer constantly overflowing with waste that will decompose sometime after the next ice age. I would heartily encourage you to give it a try!
