Wash Your Hands!

We keep hearing that phrase, from the morning news to your co-workers reminding you to wash your hands to prevent the spread of germs. So how does hand washing differ from hand sanitizer when it comes to cleaning the skin? Well to start, soap has a remarkable ability to break down fats ( amazing considering it is made of fats) and part of the success of soap cleansing is this ability to cut through the fat/grease to slough it off of the skin in the lather.

Another amazing fact about soap is how it actually works. Soap is a molecule that you can picture as a snake with a head that attracts water and a tail that attracts the fats. When you lather up at the sink, these soap molecules act as little magnets attracting the impurities of the skin and pulling it away. Those little molecules then are attracted toward each other and join to form the part you can see - soap bubbles. This is why it is important for you to scrub your hands for the 20 seconds, you need to make a lather to attract the impurities on the skin to rinse away. It's a simplified way of explaining that susdy bar you have sitting on the side of your sink, but as mom always said, "wash your hands".