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We don't really need soap, according to some

Soapy Sam said:
On the smell issue- I've been in buses in Africa and India, carrying five times the legal maximum number of passengers, in tropical heat, with no air conditioning. I've also been in the perfume department of major stores.
It was'nt the bus that sent me into the street, choking and retching. People smell like people. Chemicals smell like chemicals. I'll take people every time thanks.
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Yeah, that's gibberish. The scents from perfumes are essential oils extracted from plants. And as pointed out, what you smell from people's personal odours would be the 'chemicals' evaporating from their skin.

The people who work in the cosmetics shops probably don't even smell it - as mentioned, we get acclimatized to odours over time. I used to work in a hospital, and I got used to the smell of feces urine and vomit. That doesn't prove it's acceptable to walk around in it just because my standards have dropped.

In our society, somebody with BO is very noticeable and objectionable, because most of us conform to this standard of personal hygine.
 
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Most of us do not conform to this 'standard' of hygiene.

Turns out, "most" of us don't even have plumbing.

Soapy Sam nails it.
 
As far as I know soap does two things. First it reduces the surface tension of water, which allows it to penetrate and loosen dirt. Increases the wetting effect. There's a Mr Wizard type experiment which demonstrates this. Take a small bowl of water and sprinkle ground pepper on it. Dip a sliver of soap in the middle and watch the pepper go to the sides. The other thing about soap is that it is a mild caustic. It turns the fats and oils into soap(saponification). Old fashioned lye soaps were particularly good at this.Of course they did tend to leave the skin a bit leathery, a good thing according to Granny Clampett. If you've ever had contact with a caustic( just a drop) you'll get that soapy feeling. Personal experience, some years ago after tearing down a diesel and cleaning out the carbon. One of the guys put a skim of caustic in a five gallon bucket filled it with water then washed hands and arms in it. Worked a treat, but not really recommended.
 
I once worked with a man who claimed that he never used any cleaning products other than bar soap. He used it to clean his body, his hair and his clothes. Maybe his dishes, too, I don't recall (this was around 1980)
 
BenBurch said:
On a side note, I both wash and shampoo with Dr. Bronner's peppermint soap. And have for decades... If you buy it in the gallon size, the economy of it can't be touched.
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Yup, and when you get the gallon, you also get the expanded writings.
Btw, there's an interesting documentary about Dr. Bronner's soap. Very cool company, even if the old guy was whacked. They never advertise, which is plenty unusual.
 
RSLancastr said:
I once worked with a man who claimed that he never used any cleaning products other than bar soap. He used it to clean his body, his hair and his clothes. Maybe his dishes, too, I don't recall (this was around 1980)
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I had a boss once who told me he took baths in Tide, because it kept the bathtub clean too.
 
The Norseman said:
And Soylent Green is people!
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The very first time I watched that film as a kid I understood that I was supposed to be horrified by this revelation. However it seemed to me that if you're in a situation where you don't have the resources to feed the population you have and you have swathes of people voluntarily committing suicide and/or being killed through the normal process of living in this world, then it makes sense not to waste all that lovely protein. To this day it simply seems like a good idea to me.
 
Despite never washing, my dog has a very slight aroma of what I can only describe as biscuit. McVitie's digestive biscuit in fact. Quite pleasant really.
 
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