Soap Selection

Picking the Right Soap for Daily Use

Choosing the right soap for your everyday use might seem like a simple task, but with a plethora of options available in the market, do you really know how to pick the right soap for your skin? Going through the aisles of a supermarket or browsing online, you will see a huge variety of soaps that seem to cater to every conceivable want and need. So how do you choose one that is suitable to your needs? Before we dive into these details, let us first understand how soap basically works.

THE CHEMISTRY OF SOAP

Soap molecules have on one end, what is known as a polar salt that is hydrophilic (attracted to water). The other end of the molecule is a non-polar chain of fatty acids or hydrocarbons, which is hydrophobic. This means that it is repelled by water, but attracted to grease and other oily substances.

When you wash your hands, the soap forms something like a molecular bridge between the water and the dirty, germ-laden oils on your hands, attaching to both the oils and the water, and lifting the grime off and away. Soaps can also link up with the fatty membranes on the outside of bacteria and certain viruses, lifting the infectious agents off and even breaking them apart. Once the oily dirt and germs are off your hands, the soap molecules thoroughly surround them and form tiny clusters, known as micelles, that keep them from attaching to anything else while they wash down the drain.

• TYPES OF SOAPS There are so many different types of soup out there that it is impossible to simply list them in straightforward categories as there will be many overlapping characteristics. We will take a slightly approach to introducing the different types of soap: