<VV> Soap - enough? - and some scary facts

[Grant Young]

I'm not sure why saving soap is on this site, but I used to work for one of the world's biggest soap manufacturers - P&G - remember Ivory? You should NOT save soap. One of the reasons - other than convenience - of the move to liquid soap is for sanitary reasons. Soap doesn't really do much cleaning, it mainly captures the crud released by scrubbing friction(so buy the bargain brands)..and a lot of that crud makes its way onto and into the soap. When you save it, you save the crud to put back on your bod. If you use a very hot shower or bath, you increase your chance of having it get into your pores and respiratory system. Manufactures didn't plan on people saving the contaminants - they just figured the bar would go away. To make matters worse, the convenience bars in hotels are of significantly lower quality and often contain more additives to smell good, not to mention having questionable storage and handling. I don't use it when I travel, preferring to carry my own liquid. My concern for those who persist with this silliness to save a dollar or so a month is that you might wind up with a big dollar medical bill (and you could die). If you read the directions on hand sanitizer you will discover that it won't work unless you use soap first. Otherwise it just spreads whatever is on your hands because it can't sanitize crud, but is meant to work on the natural skin bacteria. It was made for hospitals to use on clean hands and has been mis-marketed and is essentially a scam for home use.
As another unrelated aside, I also worked in the chemical division of a large company - Int. Paper - who made additives (resin) that wound up in chewing gum, and as a result of knowing what is in it (and the legal level of organic contaminants (rat droppings and bug parts, for example) have not chewed a piece of gum since....it really might be better for a temporary Corvair repair. I am NOT trying to extend the thread :-)
Grant