Sarah Staphylococcus

Say hello to my little buddy.

A good friend of mine was mortified to find out her significant other's showering technique. She decided to show him how gross he was and prove that most people were like her (using multiple shower puffs for different body zones) by sending out a survey to her friends about how they bathed. What she found out was that her friends disgusted her too! I've decided to try and shed some light on the subject by whipping out my nerd hat and playing the dork I used to be in High School.

Sure, it never got you laid...but I did get good grades. To catch you up, I have posted her comments below.

Okay, the last bulletin I posted was asking everyone what they used to wash their stinky bodies with in the shower. The reason why I asked this is because several months ago, I noticed the method that my lovely boyfriend Mike uses, and it horrified me. He uses 1 bar of Irish Spring, no rag, no shower puff, no loofah...the same bar of soap for EVERY PART of his body! He washes his face, the rest of his body, then feet, and then his ass. He argued that this was fine because yes, he may use the same bar of soap, but since it's anti-bacterial, anything grody that gets on the soap from the ass washing will magically disappear by the next time he uses it on his face.

This shouldn't surprise me, since this is coming from the guy that would have no problem using Dawn dish soap for shampoo and body wash if he ran out of Suave. Typical guy.

Call me a germaphobe, but I use 2 shower puffs with body wash. 1 for the grody parts, and 1 for the nice parts. I told him that most people were probably like me, and I would prove it by taking a survey. I got all kinds of responses, ranging from using 1 side of the rag for the ass, and the other side for everything else (ew), to dousing the entire body in Chanel no 5.

Anyway, I've concluded that everyone is nasty since they don't use 2 separate washing utilities for bathing.


The truth is, Sarah, and I hate to do this to you, that your boyfriend is actually using a system that is significantly cleaner than your dual washing utility system in theory, but actually dangerously dirty because he uses antibacterial soap. I'll show you how.

Lets take into account what soap is; an emulsifier. That's all any soap, bodywash, or shampoo ever is. They have different chemical makeups thanks to moisturizers and numerous other inactive additives, but they're still soap -- and soap is an emulsifier. These ingredients however, can be the difference between motel soap and Dove body wash...and I know the difference, so I sympathize with you.

However all "soap" does to remove things from your body, is simply provide an emulsification between it and the water coming out of your showerhead. A handshake if you will. Oil and water don't mix, (as you know) and since the body is covered in oils and fatty plaques that all the dirt, grime, urine, fecal matter, bacteria, germs and outside contaminates reside in, you need something to be the "go-between" for the water.

An emulsifer does this job. Soap, is that emulsifier.

Now, a typical guy who uses a single bar of soap to wash his ass and his face, seems disgusting to you because you're thinking of the cross contamination from all that nastiness on your ass...to your skin that, for the most part, isn't usually exposed to that much crap. This is logical. I understand where you're coming from.

Irish Spring however, is a glycerin, stearic acid, and sodium chloride based soap. This is the foundation for nearly every soap that isn't clear or gel-like. It's used in bar soaps and body washes, and it transfers quickly upon hydration to your skin from bar soaps.

If you didn't know that body washes and bar soaps are exactly the same thing with different amounts of water in them, count yourslelf among most American consumers. Shampoos and body scrubs differ more than bar soap and body wash, because they are focused on folicles or exfoliation, but still very similar in emulsification properties.

The bar soap your boyfriend is washing his entire body with however, seems like a bacteria bath, but it's actually a pretty hostile environment for living things. After the surface layer of hydrated soap evaporates its moisture, the left over bacteria become fused into the soap. The titanium dioxide and stearic acid in the soap make for a difficult growing cycle for bacteria, and by the time your boyfriend comes back to the shower the next day, its pretty much carrying the same amount of bacterial contamination it had before.

Loofahs, body scrubs, or any other "washing utility" however...house things in them that will make you barf. Microscopic pores in the plastics and overall makeup of the devices will show that once you've rinsed them clean, they're still holding tons of nasties.

Plastic, water, bacteria and time = a good place for growing new bacteria.

Now, even if you used a new scrub every time you showered, the boyfriend has you beat still. He can take his bar soap (with the same contamination from use to use) and simply rub it directly under the water and hydrate the soap enough to "melt" the outler layer away. The soap underneath is cleaner than your loofahs and body scrubs ever get after their first use.

Now, here is where he messes up. Antibacterial, or anti-microbial agent soaps are dangerous for you and the future of our society. Sounds insane? I know! -- but check this out.

While his soap does have agents that kill 99% of germs, that asterisk you see on TV is talking about the 1%. That seemingly small number means a lot legally, so they have to say it. The stuff it can't kill is very serious and can mess you up. It requires sterner stuff to kill those bugs. Stuff so strong, it can be a little less than comfortable on your skin and thus, a little less marketable than Cocoa Butter and Aloe Vera.

The real problem however, is that the 99% of germs it can kill, are getting stronger and stronger every day. Germ warfare is being waged in hospitals across this country thanks to more and more super-strains of bacteria and viruses. They get exposed to lightweight anti-microbial agents, but recover, only to become immune to the agent. Over time, it reproduces a strain of immune bacteria that will face the Irish Spring bar with less fear next time. Over more time still, that little group A streptococcus bacteria...evolves into a form of Staph that is immune to nearly every antibiotic made by man.

I got infected with this strain about a year ago, and lemme tell you...it sucked.

The other unfortunate (and this is really gonna gross you out) problem with antibacterial soaps, is that when you use them on your skin...well...it makes your skin excrete urine. It's not like you're dripping in pee, but it happens all over your body in a measurable amount. The other problem is that antibacterial soaps wash away the good with the bad. Competitive bacteria that lives in your skin on purpose, gets killed. Our bodies need these bacteria to take up all the real estate on our skin because they compete with the foreign bugs that make us sick.

You've heard that your skin is covered in germs before, well that's what I'm referring to. The ideal situation isn't that you're in a sterile state of cleanliness with no bugs on you at all. You'd die pretty quickly actually. Necrotizing fasciitis is a pretty common bacteria, and can be found on stairway rails, toilet seats, and doorknobs. It's better known as "Flesh Eating Bacteria" and you can thank all those nasty pieces of boyfriend ass for keeping your limbs intact.

The ideal situation in cleanliness rather, is one where you keep the healthy bacteria in fresh supply within the layers of dead cells that make up your skin. This is achieved by using emulsification agents and water. If you use an antibacterial agent to clean your hands after being exposed to things like raw poultry or garbage, thats fine. Just use regular soaps most of the time...so you don't kill the good bugs.

So get your boyfriend to stop covering himself in pee and exposing you to super strains of flesh eating bacteria. That's just gross!