Is soap the cleanest thing in the world?

Question

Soap is what keeps us clean. So is soap the cleanest thing in the world? I always wonder this when I am showering.

Answer 1

If you looked at the ingredients of soap, you will find it it contains a fat i.e. beef fat or vegetable oil. (icky oily stuff) mixed with an Alkali (Sodium or potassium hydroxide, and boiled at a temperature of 80 - 100 degrees centigrade, in a process called saponification. The potassium used to be obtained by burning bracken or wood to get ash ( black sooty stuff).
So as you said Soap surely isn't made of the cleanest ingredients in the world.
However the process of cleaning requires soap to be mixed with water and applied to a soiled surface. What the soap does is to hold the dirt mixed in water in a suspension by a process called emulsification. This can then be rinsed off with clear water without it sticking back to the surface.
So the fact that you thought of cleaning yourself using water and a little soap, makes you the cleanest thing in the world!

Cheers!

Answer 2

No, soap is not the cleanest thing in the world. If you attempt to define clean, you'll find that it means different things to different people, and varies according to what you are describing. In terms of people, we use soap for many reasons. We use it to remove excess dirt, or unwanted residues. We also use it to remove microscopic germs and things we cannot see. When we shower, we use it for a combination of both. Soap happens to contain chemicals that make removing unwanted germs and dirt easier. To answer your question though, we use water to rinse of the soap and germs. When we dry our hands, water molecules stay trapped in the pores of our skin. After a while that water evaporates and exists as pure H2O, thus, water is the cleanest, and purest thing on earth.

Answer 3

Not when you have first used it, and when sharing this bar of soap with another, soap can pass on germs to others, but if you use the liquid soap this is deffinitely clean to say a bar of soap which is not if used by others and yourself, it just spreads the germs around.

Answer 4

Actually, soap itself is not especially clean, and can actually have bacteria and viruses growing on it. Soap acts as an ionic surfactant, meaning it increases the effectiveness of your scrubbing action at removing dirt and microbes. Unless the soap has an antibacterial ingredient like triclosan, it does not kill microbes, it just improves the odds of them being washed off.

Answer 5

It's not so much that it itself is clean, but the ingredients help to suspend and remove the dirt from our bodies, as water and oil do not mix.

Answer 6

complex factor. look at yahoo and bing. this will help!