Talkin’ Dirty
August 18, 2007 by Sara Ost
Filed under Health, Marketing, Misc., Prevention
The nascent antibacterial sector of the cleansing market is an avalanche of silly.
Antibacterial soaps and wipes were one thing, but antibacterial air freshener? (For air that’s let itself go.)
And antibacterial pocket pens?
Antibacterial Q-tips? I want, I need!
Antibacterial lip gloss? Pucker up!
And to finish off the cosmetic safety, an antibacterial eyelash curler. These things were scary to begin with!
Enough!
A good friend of mine works in a specialized burn unit and routinely rises at 3 a.m. in order to participate in some of the most risky surgeries imaginable. After six hours of working in ninety-one degree heat and wading around in various human bits, she takes what can only be described as a veritable swim in antibacterial gel. Exciting as the offerings of the hospital floor may be, that extra bit of disinfectant caution is just thoughtful. So while there’s a time and a place for not just killing bacteria but killing them dead, for everyday cleanliness and cold prevention, you really only need soap. Antibacterial products are nothing more than marketing to paranoia.
In fact, antibacterial products may actually be harmful because they destroy beneficial bacteria right along with the nasty stuff. Most antibacterial products that do not contain alcohol use triclosan. Triclosan can lead to increased resistance to antibiotics, though admittedly this hasn’t been proven outside the lab. Still, plain old soap works just as well for keeping both clean and safe. Technically, soap does not “kill” germs – it’s simply a surfactant that helps everything to slip off your skin more easily than with water alone. (And while we’re being technical, dermatologists will tell you that you could just bathe with pure water – but you’ll have to get scrubby with it!) Guess what? A wee bit of exposure to routine household germs develops the immune system.
Because you’re curious:
Before soap came along (and alongside it when it did) the Romans had a unique way of getting clean – a series of baths designed to sweat out dirt, and then olive-oil and a strigil (a curved stick) to scrape the skin clean. Soap is fats, like olive-oil, so this really isn’t so outlandish, and leaves the skin wonderfully supple.
We associate ‘bacterial’ with bad. (That pesky media). Without the bacteria that fix nitrogen, this planet would quickly become uninhabitable. Without our 1,000+ types of gut flora, we couldn’t process our diet. The list goes on. As you note, excessive wiping out of bacteria is risky. We need to be clean – not sterilized. All machines need a little oil and grease to work.
Down with all fads.
For personal hygiene fans, let’s remember a time in English medieval history when people of limited means sewed themselves into their clothes for 6 months.
Yum.
Another fun Triclosan fact — it reacts with chlorine in water to form chloroform, one of nature’s nasty little carcinogens! While the dosage is very small, over a lifetime it can significantly contribute to overall exposure, which is the name of the game with cancer.
As if that wasn’t bad enough, triclosan is also an emerging water pollutant due to increasing concentration in water bodies that receive treated waste water. It was widely believed at one point that the chemical broke down fairly rapidly, but that is proving false as concentrations are noticeably increasing in wastewater effluent. Though the long-term impacts of this phenomenon are unknown, it generally isn’t a good idea to begin stockpiling xenobiotic chlorinated compounds in our water supplies!
If you really need an antimicrobial product, look for something containing 70% ethanol rather than other chemicals. Ethanol is broad spectrum, is effective against a broad range of microorganisms (bacteria, fungi, and some viruses), and does not contribute to antibiotic-resistence. Booyah.
You two are awesome! Great info.
Yet another shining example of American marketing hard at work.
Life is marketing, it would seem.
It must be true the TV told me it was better … and I just have to have it, I’ll be sooo cool … and and and … everyone will love me … yay!! — Shoot me now.
High school with credit cards
Yup, that’s the biggie, right there.
The Western world needs to pay attention to the following sentence:
“The answer to the problem is almost certainly something you already have.”
I’ve found this philosophy applicable right across the board.
Soap, for example!
Thanks for the education! It’s absolutely fascinating how germs have triggered an antibacterial marketing bonanza.
By the way, I “tagged” you/this blog — this is a phenomenon that’s capturing the attention of bloggers everywhere.
You can read how I mention you at:
http://www.sugarshockblog.com/2007/08/playing-tag-on-.html
Please take this tagging in the spirit of fun and adventure in which it’s intended. It’s an opportunity for my list to get to know your blog and vice versa and, of course, to get to know each other.
Now, what do I do with that antibacterial cleanser I innocently bought recently?!
Hi Connie! I’ve read your book (stole Sisson’s copy). It was bad ass. I’ll check out this tag going around…but no promises!