hand soap

by Jason Denney

Dr Bronner’s seems like a hands down easy choice, it’s affordable, widely available, and well rated in terms of being an eco-friendly company.

A big debate is if liquid soap is more sanitary than bar soap. From the NPR research that I found, it doesn’t make much of a difference. While bar soap definitely has leftover bacteria on it, when you combine it with water, it’s just as effective as lifting the bacteria off of your hand as it is lifting the bacteria back off of itself again.

Now, doing a comparison between the full life cycle environmental impacts of liquid soap vs bar soap, bar soap wins out. Less plastic, less water weight, easier to efficiently pack, less needed per wash, less chemicals, it all adds up.

Another debate revolves around antibacterial soap. Essentially, the consensus (of the FDA) is that it’s overkill and it’s just making the bacteria more resistant and more difficult to eliminate when it actually matters.

Resources:

• https://betterworldshopper.org/

• https://www.csrhub.com/

• https://www.ecoinvent.org

• https://www.ethicalconsumer.org/

• https://insteading.com/blog/bar-soap-better-liquid-soap/

• https://methodhome.com/beyond-the-bottle/soap-factory/