21Feb 2018 by Vincent Summers 1 Comment

Should You Use Ordinary Soap or Antibacterial Soap?

Health, Medicine
[caption id="attachment_19376" align="alignright" width="480"] Triclosan - spacefill model.[/caption] Foreword: The following article was written BC. Before Coronavirus. The information that follows needs to be temporarily viewed in a different light... In the last few decades, personal cleanliness has been promoted intensely. One of the most recent marketable personal hygiene items is hand sanitizer. People purchase and use the scented stuff in all manner of situations, but especially after they shake hands with someone they suspect is sick! A typical sanitizer composition contains alcohol, a thickening agent, and scent. Another popular hygiene product is antibacterial soap. This is so despite the widespread successful use of regular soap. People want the latest and greatest. Newer must be better, right? Yet antibacterial soaps have not been received altogether with open arms. Antibacterial Soaps…
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10Feb 2018 by Vincent Summers 9 Comments

Shampoo – Is It Soap, Is It Detergent, or What?

Chemistry, Health
Shampoos are hair-care products meant to clean hair while allowing it to remain manageable. Is shampoo soap, detergent, or what? Individual shampoo products may contain many different ingredients to impart additional characteristics, but largely mainstream shampoos consist of two combined surfactants. Sodium laureth sulfate or sodium lauryl sulfate is the main surfactant. Cocamidopropyl betaine is the secondary surfactant. We will consider these two ingredients in answering the title question. Sodium Lauryl Sulfate Sodium lauryl sulfate (also called sodium dodecyl sulfate) is an anionic surfactant. One online definition of a surfactant reads: "a substance that tends to reduce the surface tension of a liquid in which it is dissolved". For the purposes of our discussion, we identify sodium lauryl sulfate as a detergent, rather than a soap. Detergents do not fail…
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