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How Soap Works · Stuff You Should Know

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  Speaker 1: Stuff you should read books dot Com pre order Now,
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  Speaker 1: welcome to Stuff you Should Know, a production of I
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  Speaker 1: Heart Radios How Stuff Works. Hey, and welcome to the podcast.
• 1:23
  Speaker 1: I'm Josh Clark and there's Charles W. Chuck, Brian over there,
• 1:27
  Speaker 1: and Jerry flitted in and out like a little COVID
• 1:30
  Speaker 1: ferry and uh, this is this is stuff you should know.
• 1:34
  Speaker 1: I don't think you want the COVID ferry to visit. Uh,
• 1:38
  Speaker 1: how about the COVID safety Faery. You want the soap ferry? Yeah,
• 1:43
  Speaker 1: because the soap faery can take on the COVID ferry
• 1:45
  Speaker 1: and smack that bword down. Yeah. And more specifically, it
• 1:52
  Speaker 1: can pry it open and say, spill out your guts, yeah,
• 1:56
  Speaker 1: correct virus. It's pretty amazing what it does. I mean,
• 2:00
  Speaker 1: like soap just just from like just this research. I'm
• 2:05
  Speaker 1: just fascinated with it. It's a magical potion. And I
• 2:09
  Speaker 1: think the fact that like we have no real clue
• 2:12
  Speaker 1: how we figured out how to make soap is just
• 2:14
  Speaker 1: makes the whole thing even that much more delightful. Yeah,
• 2:17
  Speaker 1: and knowing how it actually works is really neat. And
• 2:20
  Speaker 1: hopefully this convinces some people that it does work better
• 2:23
  Speaker 1: than hand sanitizer. Yeah, rather than just running your your
• 2:27
  Speaker 1: hands under some water for half of a second then
• 2:29
  Speaker 1: wiping them on your shirt. Yeah. So um, and we
• 2:34
  Speaker 1: are talking about soap and I want to choke. Before
• 2:36
  Speaker 1: we started, want to give a special shout out to
• 2:38
  Speaker 1: Dr Brauner's because they are soap makers and they also requested,
• 2:44
  Speaker 1: um this this episode years ago. Yeah, they rode in
• 2:50
  Speaker 1: and said, hey, here's some free samples. How about an
• 2:53
  Speaker 1: episode on soap? And we said, okay, we can't be
• 2:55
  Speaker 1: bought with free samples, but an episode of soap is
• 2:58
  Speaker 1: a good idea. So finally we're getting around to it. Yeah,
• 3:01
  Speaker 1: and we had their uh big Jumbo daddy uh liquid
• 3:06
  Speaker 1: casteel soaps by our sink here at work. Remember we
• 3:09
  Speaker 1: had that that Casteel soap fight, the Great cast Steel
• 3:13
  Speaker 1: Soap Fight of of of the Odds. Yeah, twelve. No,
• 3:19
  Speaker 1: they're stuck good. And you know, if it wasn't for
• 3:21
  Speaker 1: the fact that my wife makes soap, then I would
• 3:25
  Speaker 1: I would be firmly on the Dr Brauner strain. I
• 3:27
  Speaker 1: like their stuff. I feel like you can do both. Now. No, okay,
• 3:33
  Speaker 1: Emily wouldn't allow that she's like you, it's never me. Well,
• 3:37
  Speaker 1: I mean how about this. Tell you mean to open
• 3:39
  Speaker 1: a business for twenty years and then say, I feel
• 3:42
  Speaker 1: like I might like to use your competitors some as well. Okay,
• 3:46
  Speaker 1: all right, all right, but I'll bet the people that
• 3:49
  Speaker 1: Dr Brauner's use Emily soap. Yeah, I don't know. Maybe
• 3:53
  Speaker 1: let's find out. Maybe they can write in so um so. Yes,
• 3:56
  Speaker 1: Emily does make soap too. She sells it at I
• 3:58
  Speaker 1: Love your Mama dot Com, don't she? Yeah? I mean
• 4:01
  Speaker 1: I haven't had to buy soapen and fifteen plus years,
• 4:04
  Speaker 1: it's been great. Do you help out making the soap
• 4:07
  Speaker 1: I did in the early days. I've made quite a
• 4:09
  Speaker 1: few batches in my day, but just not anymore. What's
• 4:12
  Speaker 1: your specialty? Uh? Well, I mean I didn't have a specialty.
• 4:16
  Speaker 1: I would just make whatever she told me to make.
• 4:18
  Speaker 1: I got. It's funny, I've got I have to make
• 4:21
  Speaker 1: genitals soap again. God, And that's not so for the genitals.
• 4:26
  Speaker 1: It's soap in the shape of genitals and also for
• 4:29
  Speaker 1: the genitals. Sure, I guess you probably shouldn't really make
• 4:33
  Speaker 1: a distinction there. So, like we said, soap is kind
• 4:37
  Speaker 1: of magic. Chuck and I feel like we just kind
• 4:38
  Speaker 1: of off the bat talk about, um, why it's magic,
• 4:43
  Speaker 1: because it's one of those things where science can explain it.
• 4:46
  Speaker 1: But that doesn't really make it any less impressive, you know.
• 4:49
  Speaker 1: Actually it makes it kind of more impressive, to tell
• 4:51
  Speaker 1: you the truth. Yeah, and you know, what soap is
• 4:55
  Speaker 1: is just a couple of things. Like if you were
• 4:57
  Speaker 1: to go back a long time and we'll talk about
• 4:59
  Speaker 1: the history, or go out in the middle of the
• 5:02
  Speaker 1: furthest reaches of oh, I don't know, the jungle where
• 5:06
  Speaker 1: people are sort of making their own versions of soap.
• 5:09
  Speaker 1: You really just need a couple of things, which is
• 5:11
  Speaker 1: some sort of a fat or an oil and an
• 5:14
  Speaker 1: alkali and uh, that's really it. You know, people can
• 5:18
  Speaker 1: use a lot of people through history have used animal
• 5:20
  Speaker 1: fats and stuff like that. Obviously, Fight Club had the
• 5:23
  Speaker 1: big joke about using lard from liposuction large I think, right,
• 5:30
  Speaker 1: so that's fat too. But um, you know, Emily's is
• 5:32
  Speaker 1: an olive oil based oapen. I'm a big fan of that. Yeah. Yeah,
• 5:36
  Speaker 1: they figured out finally you could you didn't need to
• 5:39
  Speaker 1: sacrifice goats anymore. You could just use s right. Yeah,
• 5:45
  Speaker 1: the same ceremony it's just dinkier, that's right. So, Um, yeah,
• 5:49
  Speaker 1: that's I mean, that's all there is two and an
• 5:51
  Speaker 1: alkali in this case, Um, it's a well. An alkali
• 5:55
  Speaker 1: in every case is a type of base. Um. It's
• 5:57
  Speaker 1: the opposite of an acid on the p H scale,
• 6:00
  Speaker 1: has a high pH and usually traditionally when making soap,
• 6:04
  Speaker 1: it comes in the form of lie and and lie
• 6:07
  Speaker 1: you can get by chopping down some wood, specifically hardwood
• 6:11
  Speaker 1: you don't want softwood, burning it, taking the ashes, boiling
• 6:15
  Speaker 1: them and then scraping off what floats to the top.
• 6:18
  Speaker 1: You have lie right there, and that's one of the
• 6:21
  Speaker 1: two main ingredients along with fat, like you said, um,
• 6:24
  Speaker 1: and in making soap, that's it. That's all there is
• 6:27
  Speaker 1: just to soap, right. But it's so you would have
• 6:31
  Speaker 1: like you would never put those two things together that
• 6:35
  Speaker 1: it's almost like it makes more sense how we figured
• 6:38
  Speaker 1: out how to make alcohol, and it does how we
• 6:41
  Speaker 1: figured out how to make soap, you know what I mean.
• 6:44
  Speaker 1: It's not very intuitive, No, it's not at all, But
• 6:47
  Speaker 1: that is what soap is. And we've been making it
• 6:49
  Speaker 1: for at least about forty hundred five thousand years as
• 6:52
  Speaker 1: we'll see. Um. But before we get to the history, Chuck,
• 6:55
  Speaker 1: let's talk a little bit about how the whole thing works. Okay, Yeah,
• 6:59
  Speaker 1: So you know you've got water and that's a key
• 7:01
  Speaker 1: component to washing your body. And if you've ever heard
• 7:05
  Speaker 1: the term oil and water don't mix, that's true because
• 7:08
  Speaker 1: it's all about you know, it goes down to a
• 7:10
  Speaker 1: molecular level and water molecules they like each other a lot,
• 7:15
  Speaker 1: but they don't like oil. They don't like fat because
• 7:18
  Speaker 1: the oil molecules are big and they don't have these
• 7:22
  Speaker 1: poles that have different electrical charges. And it really is
• 7:25
  Speaker 1: interesting that it comes down to literal chemistry in this case. Yeah.
• 7:29
  Speaker 1: Do you remember, I think in our pepper spray episode,
• 7:32
  Speaker 1: we explained why if you rinse your face off with
• 7:35
  Speaker 1: water after you've been pepper sprayed, Um, it doesn't work.
• 7:39
  Speaker 1: It's because the water and the I think the cap
• 7:42
  Speaker 1: sasan don't bind together. But if you use something like milk,
• 7:45
  Speaker 1: like a fat, that fat binds the cap sasan. So
• 7:47
  Speaker 1: that's why you'd want to use milk to wash your
• 7:49
  Speaker 1: eyes out after being pepper sprayed. Yeah, yeah, the end.
• 7:55
  Speaker 1: So um, there's a very similar thing going on with
• 7:58
  Speaker 1: water water, Like you said like to bind to itself,
• 8:01
  Speaker 1: and that binding chuck is what it counts for surface tension,
• 8:04
  Speaker 1: which is how you can fill a glass of water
• 8:06
  Speaker 1: up with water slightly over the rim of the glass
• 8:10
  Speaker 1: and it will hold its shape. It's because water molecules
• 8:13
  Speaker 1: are so attracted to each other that they form like
• 8:15
  Speaker 1: basically a well, a tense surface. Hence surface tension. So
• 8:22
  Speaker 1: when you add soap, things change. Soap comes along and says,
• 8:26
  Speaker 1: I see what you like, see what's going on here,
• 8:28
  Speaker 1: but I'm going to shake things up a little bit. Yeah,
• 8:31
  Speaker 1: And it's it's so cool because soap basically gets oil
• 8:34
  Speaker 1: and water to party together. Uh. Soap comes in. They
• 8:38
  Speaker 1: have these pin shaped uh ends and each end and
• 8:44
  Speaker 1: it's it's almost like it was meant to be this
• 8:45
  Speaker 1: way or something. They have very distinct ends and they
• 8:48
  Speaker 1: bind with the water on one side and the oil
• 8:51
  Speaker 1: on the other as if it was just made to say,
• 8:54
  Speaker 1: you guys need to get together and clean things. Yeah.
• 8:58
  Speaker 1: But not only do they like bind with the water
• 9:00
  Speaker 1: on one end and oil and the other end that
• 9:02
  Speaker 1: they have like polar opposite ends as a single soap
• 9:07
  Speaker 1: molecule does. So not only does like the end like
• 9:10
  Speaker 1: to bind with oil, which means it's oleophilic. It hates water,
• 9:15
  Speaker 1: which makes it hydrophobic. And because that end is hydrophobic,
• 9:20
  Speaker 1: it does everything it can to get away from water,
• 9:23
  Speaker 1: including pushing through water and separating water into its constituent molecules,
• 9:29
  Speaker 1: which loosens that surface tension of water um, which makes
• 9:32
  Speaker 1: soap a surfactant, a surface active agent, which means that
• 9:37
  Speaker 1: it makes water a little more permeable, like water can
• 9:41
  Speaker 1: get into tinier cracks and crevices than it normally would
• 9:44
  Speaker 1: because that that um hydrophobic end of the soap molecule
• 9:49
  Speaker 1: is keeping the water from from coming together because it's
• 9:52
  Speaker 1: just plowing right through trying to get away from the water. Yeah,
• 9:55
  Speaker 1: that's the tail end. The head end of the soap
• 9:58
  Speaker 1: has a little bit of a negative charge, and that says,
• 10:01
  Speaker 1: all right, I really want to bond with that positive
• 10:05
  Speaker 1: hydrogen atom and water. So that made makes it hydrophilic.
• 10:08
  Speaker 1: So that end loves water, the other end loves the oil,
• 10:13
  Speaker 1: and and and when they come together. And I love
• 10:15
  Speaker 1: the way Dave Verus put it. He said, Uh, the
• 10:18
  Speaker 1: hydrophilic head and the hydrophobic tail act like a team
• 10:20
  Speaker 1: of bouncers that's around the particles, uh, and say get
• 10:25
  Speaker 1: out of here. And I think the one thing we
• 10:27
  Speaker 1: didn't mention that makes us all work is the fact
• 10:29
  Speaker 1: that uh. And the reason why just rinsing your hands
• 10:32
  Speaker 1: off doesn't work as well as with soap is that
• 10:34
  Speaker 1: all those all the dirt and all that stuff that
• 10:36
  Speaker 1: builds up on your body has oil in it, right, right,
• 10:41
  Speaker 1: So so let's let's give an example here, Chuck. Let's
• 10:43
  Speaker 1: say that you have some cake frosting on your hands.
• 10:46
  Speaker 1: Don't ask, well, you just you know how you take
• 10:49
  Speaker 1: care of that. Yeah, but you've licked it so so
• 10:52
  Speaker 1: much so that now it's kind of getting gross, okay,
• 10:55
  Speaker 1: and you just need to You finally reached that point
• 10:57
  Speaker 1: where you need thought you're gonna suggest washing that off
• 10:59
  Speaker 1: of your hand, right, Okay, No, not that, No, that
• 11:02
  Speaker 1: we're past that stage, the licking stage, and we're at
• 11:04
  Speaker 1: the hand washing stage. Now. When you when you wet
• 11:07
  Speaker 1: your hands with water, you get it nice and primed.
• 11:09
  Speaker 1: Then when you add soap and you lather the soap up,
• 11:12
  Speaker 1: what you're doing is you're you're introducing those soap molecules,
• 11:16
  Speaker 1: which are again special magic little molecules, into this You're
• 11:21
  Speaker 1: creating like a solution of soapy water solution, and so
• 11:24
  Speaker 1: those soap molecules are basically trying to get away from
• 11:27
  Speaker 1: the water on one side, and on that side they're saying, oh, hey,
• 11:32
  Speaker 1: a little bit of oily hydrogenated cake frosting, great, I
• 11:36
  Speaker 1: want to be attracted to you. And a bunch of
• 11:39
  Speaker 1: different soap molecules are going to do that to a
• 11:42
  Speaker 1: single little particle of cake frosting, and they essentially surround it.
• 11:47
  Speaker 1: So the tail ends of a bunch of different soap
• 11:49
  Speaker 1: molecules are all pointing inward, enveloping basically a little particle
• 11:53
  Speaker 1: of cake frosting, and then on the outside they're connecting
• 11:57
  Speaker 1: to the water molecules that are surrounding that. So that's
• 12:00
  Speaker 1: basically stage one, and the cake frosting starts to sweat
• 12:04
  Speaker 1: a little bit. It's like, well, what's gonna come next?
• 12:06
  Speaker 1: What's coming next? I don't really like being surrounded like
• 12:09
  Speaker 1: this without knowing what's coming next. And the cake frosting
• 12:13
  Speaker 1: doesn't want to know what comes next because it doesn't
• 12:15
  Speaker 1: pan out well for it. Yeah, so it gets surrounded
• 12:18
  Speaker 1: and like you said, the tails are pointing in, the
• 12:22
  Speaker 1: heads are pointing out, and it surrounds and basically traps
• 12:27
  Speaker 1: the dirt and the oil and what are called my
• 12:29
  Speaker 1: cells am I C E L L E S. And
• 12:34
  Speaker 1: that's a little bubble around the dirt basically, and all
• 12:36
  Speaker 1: those little little outside pointing heads lift that dirt from
• 12:40
  Speaker 1: the surface and all of a sudden it's floating around
• 12:43
  Speaker 1: a little bit now and not not bound to your skin.
• 12:46
  Speaker 1: He's like, I don't know what's happening. And that's where
• 12:48
  Speaker 1: your good friend water comes in to just wash it
• 12:50
  Speaker 1: all down the drain. Yeah, Because so remember um, in
• 12:54
  Speaker 1: addition to being oleophilic where it's attracted to oils, it's
• 12:58
  Speaker 1: also a surfactan, so it breaks water molecules up, which
• 13:02
  Speaker 1: means that that water can get into smaller crevices, for example,
• 13:06
  Speaker 1: underneath that piece of cake frosting, So it makes it
• 13:09
  Speaker 1: easier for it to just get carried away too. So
• 13:12
  Speaker 1: it's all just kind of coming together into this amazing
• 13:15
  Speaker 1: little process that happens every time you wash your hands
• 13:18
  Speaker 1: and form those little mice seller bubbles. Um. That's where
• 13:22
  Speaker 1: all those particles go. They just get carried off thanks
• 13:25
  Speaker 1: to these soap molecules surrounding them, connecting with the water
• 13:28
  Speaker 1: molecules and then just getting rinsed away. It's kind of like, um,
• 13:32
  Speaker 1: you know that scene in True Lies where Jamie Lee
• 13:35
  Speaker 1: Curtis is hanging from the helicopter and Arnold Schwartzeneger is
• 13:39
  Speaker 1: holding onto her, and he's actually holding on the helicopter.
• 13:43
  Speaker 1: So Arnold Schwarzenegger is the soap molecule, Jamie Lee Curtis
• 13:46
  Speaker 1: is the cake frosting, and the helicopter is the water
• 13:50
  Speaker 1: that's rinsing it all away down the drain, that's right,
• 13:53
  Speaker 1: and the dirt saying I'll be back, and the sub
• 13:55
  Speaker 1: saying no, you won't. Terrible the face of us retort
• 14:00
  Speaker 1: to I'll be back. And the coolest thing about all
• 14:04
  Speaker 1: of this, I mean, that's just how it takes care
• 14:05
  Speaker 1: of the dirt on your body, which is amazing in
• 14:07
  Speaker 1: and of itself. But it can do the same thing
• 14:10
  Speaker 1: with viruses and bacteria, especially well, not especially, but including
• 14:14
  Speaker 1: the coronavirus, because a lot of these things have this
• 14:18
  Speaker 1: double layered lipid membrane, including the coronavirus, and the deal
• 14:23
  Speaker 1: with that that hydrophobic into the soap. It's really really sharp,
• 14:26
  Speaker 1: and so it can actually you get a bunch of
• 14:28
  Speaker 1: those guys together, and it can wedge in between those
• 14:31
  Speaker 1: membranes and kind of if you get enough of them
• 14:34
  Speaker 1: pried up like it's a crowbar or something. And then
• 14:37
  Speaker 1: that's when the virus is all of a sudden, you know,
• 14:40
  Speaker 1: like Arnold Schwarzenegger just taking care of business. Yeah, it
• 14:43
  Speaker 1: basically gets ripped apart by so many let's like death
• 14:47
  Speaker 1: by a thousand paper cuts. But instead of paper, it's
• 14:50
  Speaker 1: soap molecules, and the lipid memory that protects the virus
• 14:54
  Speaker 1: just gets torn right open. It fills the virus proteins out,
• 14:58
  Speaker 1: and those virus proteins actually um get enveloped by even
• 15:02
  Speaker 1: more soap molecules. So not only does it like get
• 15:05
  Speaker 1: rid of microbes, it actually like kills certain kinds of microbes.
• 15:10
  Speaker 1: Just we're just talking about regular plain old soap and
• 15:15
  Speaker 1: water here, everybody. Yeah, and you know, not to get
• 15:18
  Speaker 1: to ahead of the game, But that's why soap is
• 15:20
  Speaker 1: better for washing your hands during well, at all times,
• 15:24
  Speaker 1: but especially during a time like this, because I think
• 15:27
  Speaker 1: people just figure, like because we have this association with
• 15:32
  Speaker 1: like alcohol and that smell, like it just kills everything
• 15:34
  Speaker 1: on contact, but it doesn't kill everything on contact. And
• 15:38
  Speaker 1: if you're in a pinch and you don't have soap,
• 15:40
  Speaker 1: and you're at a store or something, and it's good
• 15:43
  Speaker 1: to have that stuff to use, but uh, it doesn't
• 15:46
  Speaker 1: necessarily kill it. And what you're not doing is washing
• 15:50
  Speaker 1: it off with water and down the drain. No you're not,
• 15:54
  Speaker 1: you're and so so there's two problems here. Um. Yes,
• 15:57
  Speaker 1: it killed a bunch of stuff, especially things that alcohol
• 16:00
  Speaker 1: and kill. But the stuff that it can't kill. You
• 16:02
  Speaker 1: just basically gave an alcohol bath too. And it's still
• 16:05
  Speaker 1: there on your hands. So when you do touch your
• 16:07
  Speaker 1: face again, inevitably, um, those things are going to be
• 16:11
  Speaker 1: introduced to your mouth, including things like poliovirus, which, as
• 16:14
  Speaker 1: we learned recently, you don't want to go into your mouth.
• 16:18
  Speaker 1: Should we take a break, I think we should, and
• 16:21
  Speaker 1: then what we'll come back and talk history maybe, yeah,
• 16:23
  Speaker 1: let's do it. Okay, all right, chuck, so soap. Like
• 16:52
  Speaker 1: we said, we're not entirely sure how we ever figured
• 16:57
  Speaker 1: out how to make soap, um, but we do know
• 17:00
  Speaker 1: from records, hieroglyphics, cuneiform tablets, all that jazz that um.
• 17:06
  Speaker 1: In Mesopotamia, people were making soap, you know, taking an
• 17:11
  Speaker 1: alkali and a fat, mixing them together, adding heat into
• 17:16
  Speaker 1: water and through hydrolysis, going through this process called supontification. Uh,
• 17:22
  Speaker 1: and producing soap. That's how you produce soap has to
• 17:25
  Speaker 1: have gone through supontification to be considered soap. Right that
• 17:28
  Speaker 1: we've been doing this, we humans for at least five
• 17:31
  Speaker 1: thousand years. Yeah, it's kind of cool. Uh. When I
• 17:35
  Speaker 1: was making batches of soap that I heard that word
• 17:37
  Speaker 1: a lot from Emily because I would you know, there's
• 17:40
  Speaker 1: a lot of mixing involved, and I would think I
• 17:42
  Speaker 1: was done with the mixing, and she say, it hasn't
• 17:44
  Speaker 1: supontified yet, And you know, it's just sort of an
• 17:47
  Speaker 1: easy test. You would lift the mixer out, kind of
• 17:49
  Speaker 1: sling a little bit of it on the surface, and
• 17:53
  Speaker 1: it's almost like seeing when a pasta noodles done. You
• 17:55
  Speaker 1: can just sort of tell by the way it's that,
• 17:57
  Speaker 1: the thicknesses and the way it sets, and when you
• 18:00
  Speaker 1: finally reach that suppontification point, you're you know, you're right
• 18:03
  Speaker 1: or rock. It's a great word, it is. I always
• 18:07
  Speaker 1: called it. I would always say that we're pulling into
• 18:10
  Speaker 1: suppontification station, which was my old joke. That's a good one. Um,
• 18:14
  Speaker 1: So suppontification actually, Chuck, I didn't realize that it was
• 18:18
  Speaker 1: from um uh legendary mythical mountain. Did you know that
• 18:23
  Speaker 1: Mount Sappo? Is that the Roman one? Yeah? Yeah, that's
• 18:28
  Speaker 1: the sort of the legend, and no one knows if
• 18:30
  Speaker 1: it's true, but it sounds it makes for a good story.
• 18:33
  Speaker 1: From what I understand, it is definitely not true, okay,
• 18:36
  Speaker 1: but it does make for a good story, so we're
• 18:37
  Speaker 1: gonna tell it anyway. So, yeah, in ancient Rome there
• 18:42
  Speaker 1: was a Mount Sapo, and as the legend goes, that
• 18:46
  Speaker 1: is not true. Ancient priests would sacrifice animals up there,
• 18:50
  Speaker 1: and when it would rain, that animal fat from that
• 18:53
  Speaker 1: disgusting animal sacrifice ceremony would flow down along with the
• 18:58
  Speaker 1: wood ash that you already mentioned and was the Alkali
• 19:01
  Speaker 1: and go down there to the river, the Tiber river,
• 19:04
  Speaker 1: and people were washing their clothes down there, and when
• 19:07
  Speaker 1: that happened, they would be like, man, this stuff sudds
• 19:10
  Speaker 1: it up in. My clothes have never been cleaner. Yeah
• 19:13
  Speaker 1: that's not just plain clean, Yeah, that's Sappo clean. Right,
• 19:19
  Speaker 1: So U we, from what I understand, there's just no
• 19:22
  Speaker 1: question that there is no such thing as Mount Sappo,
• 19:24
  Speaker 1: and that this is all just kind of a made
• 19:26
  Speaker 1: up the God I didn't know that that was fake.
• 19:32
  Speaker 1: The Mount Sappo was fake. I just thought the legend
• 19:35
  Speaker 1: was fake. I didn't like, are there Romans? Are they fake?
• 19:38
  Speaker 1: I don't know. The jury is kind of still there
• 19:40
  Speaker 1: are today, but we're not sure where they came from.
• 19:43
  Speaker 1: Um No, from what I From what I know, there's
• 19:45
  Speaker 1: not a real Mount Sapo. But the fact is the
• 19:48
  Speaker 1: Romans felt compelled for some reason to say, where'd this
• 19:52
  Speaker 1: come from? Oh well, let me explain with this made
• 19:56
  Speaker 1: up story. So um and by the time this Mount
• 19:59
  Speaker 1: Sappo a legend came around. I mean, people have been
• 20:01
  Speaker 1: making this stuff for a couple of thousand years already.
• 20:04
  Speaker 1: So it definitely did not originate a Mount Sappo because
• 20:07
  Speaker 1: there is no Mount Sappo. But we do know the
• 20:10
  Speaker 1: Romans were into it, not just from that legend, but
• 20:12
  Speaker 1: also plenty of The Elder mentioned it in his Naturalists
• 20:15
  Speaker 1: story of from seventies seven CE. You know what else
• 20:19
  Speaker 1: the Romans were into? Yeah, they were into a lot
• 20:23
  Speaker 1: of stuff. They're like, I got a great story for
• 20:26
  Speaker 1: you about the soap. Come on into this room with
• 20:28
  Speaker 1: these other thirty five people. Have you met my friend press.
• 20:33
  Speaker 1: I'll tell you all about it. You're gonna love him.
• 20:36
  Speaker 1: So they were definitely producing um what you would call
• 20:40
  Speaker 1: soap though by two b c e. That was from
• 20:44
  Speaker 1: Kurd and like goat fat and beech tree ash, and
• 20:48
  Speaker 1: they would clean stuff in towns with that kind of stuff.
• 20:50
  Speaker 1: They would wash their pots out. Other people would use
• 20:54
  Speaker 1: it to clean cotton to make textiles and stuff like that.
• 20:58
  Speaker 1: But it wasn't like, uh wasn't for personal use yet. No,
• 21:02
  Speaker 1: that was like the one thing in common is people
• 21:04
  Speaker 1: were using it for everything but washing themselves. Like I
• 21:08
  Speaker 1: don't know if it just didn't hit upon them or whatever,
• 21:11
  Speaker 1: but they didn't like Apparently the galls even used it
• 21:14
  Speaker 1: to slick their hair back, not to wash their hair,
• 21:17
  Speaker 1: just to slick it back and give it a nice
• 21:18
  Speaker 1: little reddish tint apparently. But the but Europe, so Europe
• 21:23
  Speaker 1: had like soap making guilds from I think the seventh century.
• 21:28
  Speaker 1: For for a very long time people have been making
• 21:31
  Speaker 1: soap in Europe. But it wasn't until after the Crusades
• 21:34
  Speaker 1: that some of the crusaders returned um, as the legend
• 21:38
  Speaker 1: goes in Mount mount Sapo style story, but they returned
• 21:42
  Speaker 1: supposedly with Aleppo soap from Syria, which is fragrance with
• 21:46
  Speaker 1: bay laurels, very nice, beautiful olive oil soap you can
• 21:49
  Speaker 1: still get today. But the story goes that the returning
• 21:53
  Speaker 1: Crusaders said, get this stuff. It's soap, but you use
• 21:57
  Speaker 1: it to wash your genitals and you're up. Started to
• 22:00
  Speaker 1: get very clean, at least like the elite aristocracy who
• 22:03
  Speaker 1: had the money to afford things like that got very clean. Well,
• 22:06
  Speaker 1: at least their genitals did, right, right. It took another
• 22:10
  Speaker 1: three years for something and be like, I wonder if
• 22:12
  Speaker 1: you could use this on your under arms as well, right,
• 22:15
  Speaker 1: And they went, what about your face or like, you
• 22:16
  Speaker 1: know where you've been washing with that stuff. It's true,
• 22:21
  Speaker 1: it's got hair on it to prove it. Oh dude,
• 22:26
  Speaker 1: that was too much for you. I don't know. I
• 22:28
  Speaker 1: didn't even use the word pubic here. I mean we
• 22:31
  Speaker 1: said the word genitals like five times. That's true. So
• 22:36
  Speaker 1: that was That was how Europe supposedly started to come
• 22:39
  Speaker 1: into soap. It was imported from the Middle East, but
• 22:43
  Speaker 1: um in very short order, I think Spain started making
• 22:46
  Speaker 1: castile soap um out of olive oil and it took
• 22:50
  Speaker 1: off in France and England and elsewhere, and again it
• 22:54
  Speaker 1: was a luxury item, but it was it became much
• 22:57
  Speaker 1: more widespread when Europe started making it themselves. Yeah, I
• 23:00
  Speaker 1: think the Castile region, right, didn't that where that came from. Yeah,
• 23:03
  Speaker 1: And as long as it's supposedly originally was made from
• 23:07
  Speaker 1: olive oil, qualified as a casteel soap. But even now
• 23:10
  Speaker 1: you can make casteele soap from like palm oil or
• 23:13
  Speaker 1: coconut oil or whatever, and it's still considered castele soap.
• 23:16
  Speaker 1: So I think it's just a free for all. Yeah. Um,
• 23:21
  Speaker 1: you know what I like about Emily's Liquid Soap and
• 23:24
  Speaker 1: the Doctor Brauners is that it's how liquid soap should be,
• 23:27
  Speaker 1: which is to say then, um, it's almost like has
• 23:31
  Speaker 1: the same sort of viscosity as water. Uh. And whenever
• 23:36
  Speaker 1: I see and I don't want to name like Slam
• 23:39
  Speaker 1: a name brand, but let's just say the very popular
• 23:43
  Speaker 1: hand soap that they've had around since the eighties, and
• 23:46
  Speaker 1: the way that stuff comes out all gooey and pearly,
• 23:49
  Speaker 1: it's just so gross, really, mother of pearly. It's really
• 23:52
  Speaker 1: nasty looking to me now that I've seen like good
• 23:54
  Speaker 1: real liquid soap. Yeah, so um. Yeah. And one of
• 24:00
  Speaker 1: the other things I like about ket steel stub with
• 24:02
  Speaker 1: um Dr Bruner's and Emilies in particular, is that your
• 24:05
  Speaker 1: hands feel washed afterwards to it doesn't feel like you've
• 24:09
  Speaker 1: missed any like there's a residue. It's like it's gone,
• 24:12
  Speaker 1: but it also has left behind like a clean feeling.
• 24:15
  Speaker 1: It's it's just its own thing for sure. Yeah. And
• 24:19
  Speaker 1: you know, since we're talking about this, I uh want
• 24:22
  Speaker 1: to say a huge thanks to people that went out
• 24:24
  Speaker 1: and bought stuff from her store after the Essential Oils episode.
• 24:28
  Speaker 1: UM We've given her plenty of shout outs over the years,
• 24:31
  Speaker 1: and there's always been a little little spikes in her business.
• 24:34
  Speaker 1: But I think the topic and small business and hurting
• 24:40
  Speaker 1: because of the coronavirus and everything kind of came together
• 24:42
  Speaker 1: and they've been overwhelmed with support and it's been really
• 24:46
  Speaker 1: really sweet and a little bit much even, but it's
• 24:49
  Speaker 1: been it's kind of like, be careful what you asked for,
• 24:51
  Speaker 1: you know, right. That's that's um and Buzz corporate buzz speak.
• 24:54
  Speaker 1: They say, that's a good problem to have. Yeah, So
• 24:57
  Speaker 1: if you're gonna order soap, just wait a week or two. Okay,
• 25:02
  Speaker 1: fair warning, everybody or just be prepared to wait a
• 25:05
  Speaker 1: week or two. In the back end, Hey, by the way,
• 25:07
  Speaker 1: you can also order something now too that you have
• 25:09
  Speaker 1: to wait for, and that would be our book, an
• 25:11
  Speaker 1: incomplete compendium of mostly interesting things, which you can order
• 25:15
  Speaker 1: right now anywhere you buy books, and if you're lucky
• 25:19
  Speaker 1: enough to live in the United States and Canada currently,
• 25:22
  Speaker 1: you get a free poster as a gift or preorder. Wow,
• 25:27
  Speaker 1: that's that was a nice segue, my friend. Thank you
• 25:30
  Speaker 1: so for It took hundreds and hundreds of years, thousands
• 25:33
  Speaker 1: of years, Chuck, think about us, thousands of years after
• 25:35
  Speaker 1: the invention of soap before we finally started to use
• 25:39
  Speaker 1: it on ourselves. And then apparently it wasn't until after
• 25:43
  Speaker 1: the Civil War, at least in the United States that
• 25:46
  Speaker 1: that using soap really took off, and soap making and
• 25:50
  Speaker 1: the soap making industry became like kind of a thing
• 25:53
  Speaker 1: all around the same time. Yeah, like I think Ivory
• 25:58
  Speaker 1: soap was released in eight nine. Um, Paul Mallive was
• 26:05
  Speaker 1: released around the same time. And I never realized Paul
• 26:08
  Speaker 1: mall of soap is so named because it has palm
• 26:10
  Speaker 1: oil and olive oil in it. Did you know that
• 26:13
  Speaker 1: I didn't. But you know, I know those are two
• 26:16
  Speaker 1: potential soap ingredients, and palm oil is a little controversial
• 26:19
  Speaker 1: these days because of the way it's sourced. Yeah, and
• 26:23
  Speaker 1: you know, we don't have to go down that rabbit hole.
• 26:25
  Speaker 1: But just when you're shopping for stuff, just sort of
• 26:28
  Speaker 1: try and figure out where that stuff is coming from,
• 26:30
  Speaker 1: is all I'm saying. Um, and then let's see what else.
• 26:33
  Speaker 1: Life Boy, the one that Ralphie hated so much. I
• 26:37
  Speaker 1: was that Life Boy. Yeah, yeah, that one came out.
• 26:43
  Speaker 1: And what was remarkable about Life Boy, UM is that
• 26:47
  Speaker 1: it was Um. They were the ones who coined the
• 26:50
  Speaker 1: term body odor b O as part of a marketing
• 26:53
  Speaker 1: campaign to get you to actually buy in use soap.
• 26:56
  Speaker 1: I did not know that. I feel like we must
• 26:59
  Speaker 1: have talked about about that in our body Odor episode,
• 27:01
  Speaker 1: you know, I don't know. I do like that Little
• 27:03
  Speaker 1: Ivory story too, though. That Um. In eighteen seventy nine,
• 27:07
  Speaker 1: a soap maker at PNG made a mistake, as the
• 27:10
  Speaker 1: legend goes, and forgot to turn off the mixer and
• 27:14
  Speaker 1: then that whipped a bunch of air in there. This
• 27:16
  Speaker 1: is what happens when you over mixed something and uh
• 27:20
  Speaker 1: shipped him out anyway, because he was like, I don't
• 27:22
  Speaker 1: want to get, you know, pinned for this. And apparently
• 27:25
  Speaker 1: a lot of people wrote in We're like I love
• 27:27
  Speaker 1: that floating soap, and that was sort of always a
• 27:29
  Speaker 1: selling point for Ivory was that it floats. Yeah, and
• 27:34
  Speaker 1: the moral of the stories that they fired him anyway
• 27:37
  Speaker 1: for withholding the information. That's right, Jimmy Ivory. Yeah, they
• 27:42
  Speaker 1: kept his name. He kept his name. Uh. And then
• 27:46
  Speaker 1: the hand soap uh. In eighteen sixty five, William Shephard
• 27:51
  Speaker 1: patented the first liquid soap, but it took all the
• 27:54
  Speaker 1: way until nineteen eighty when you know soft soap came around. Yeah.
• 28:00
  Speaker 1: And here's the thing. Did you know the story from
• 28:02
  Speaker 1: the Minnetonka Corporation. I didn't previous to reading this. This
• 28:07
  Speaker 1: is so great. So the Minnetonka Corporation are the ones
• 28:10
  Speaker 1: who debuted soft soap. And before then it was like
• 28:12
  Speaker 1: you have bar soap, that was your option. But in
• 28:15
  Speaker 1: Night they said, we're gonna release this and I think
• 28:18
  Speaker 1: it's going to be a big deal. So we're gonna
• 28:20
  Speaker 1: go around and buy up all of the the soap
• 28:24
  Speaker 1: pumps that anybody could possibly use, and they cornered the
• 28:28
  Speaker 1: market on liquid soap, just from buying up all the
• 28:31
  Speaker 1: soap pumps. You think that's a good thing before they
• 28:33
  Speaker 1: release as far as like from the lens of a
• 28:37
  Speaker 1: robber baron. Okay, it's a great thing. It's like it
• 28:39
  Speaker 1: seems like a jerk move to me. At the very least.
• 28:42
  Speaker 1: It's a good story, you know. And everyone they talked
• 28:45
  Speaker 1: to you, they were like, oh, no, go out and
• 28:46
  Speaker 1: make liquid soap. What you're gonna put it in? Yeah?
• 28:49
  Speaker 1: What are you gonna do? Deliver it by hand to
• 28:51
  Speaker 1: people and just be like here, hold your hands, to
• 28:53
  Speaker 1: cut your hands. We'll give you some of our liquid soap.
• 28:55
  Speaker 1: You gotta wrap in paper. I don't think so it's true.
• 28:59
  Speaker 1: Oh and speaking you wrapped in paper, I have one
• 29:01
  Speaker 1: more little piece of lower soap. Lower. Do you ever
• 29:04
  Speaker 1: use Irish spring? I did in college. Okay, yeah, that's
• 29:08
  Speaker 1: the appropriate time to use Irish spring. Father um. Do
• 29:12
  Speaker 1: you know that scent? There's actually a name for it.
• 29:15
  Speaker 1: It's not like publicly named, but internally I think Colgate
• 29:18
  Speaker 1: palm Olive. It's called Ulster scent Ulster fragrance um. And
• 29:25
  Speaker 1: when they came out with Irish Spring, it wasn't debuted
• 29:29
  Speaker 1: in Ireland. No one in Ireland invented it. It was
• 29:31
  Speaker 1: actually invented in Germany in nineteen seventy and then it
• 29:35
  Speaker 1: made its way to the United States in nineteen seventy two,
• 29:39
  Speaker 1: and initially for the first like decade that Irish Spring
• 29:42
  Speaker 1: was around. On the package it said a manly deodorant soap.
• 29:48
  Speaker 1: How interesting for men. They couldn't call it German spring either,
• 29:52
  Speaker 1: because that sounds like some kind of Nazi offensive or something.
• 29:56
  Speaker 1: They they called the Irish Spring, but in German. Remember
• 30:01
  Speaker 1: how it's pronounced. M hmmm, I don't remember that one.
• 30:05
  Speaker 1: You can't put two and two together from that. No, ye, Well,
• 30:10
  Speaker 1: I'll see if I can find it while we're still talking. Okay,
• 30:13
  Speaker 1: So should we talk about how you should wash your
• 30:15
  Speaker 1: hands since that's relevant? Yeah? I think so. And I
• 30:19
  Speaker 1: know we talked about this some on the COVID episode,
• 30:22
  Speaker 1: But um, I love the way that this doctor put it.
• 30:26
  Speaker 1: It was a health official. I think that said wash
• 30:29
  Speaker 1: your hands like you've been chopping jalapenos, and you need
• 30:32
  Speaker 1: to change out your contact lenses. That's a really great advice.
• 30:36
  Speaker 1: It was sort of like when we did this reminds
• 30:37
  Speaker 1: me of when we did poison ivy and they said
• 30:40
  Speaker 1: you need to scrub like there's grease, like auto black
• 30:44
  Speaker 1: auto grease on your body. Do you remember saying that? No,
• 30:49
  Speaker 1: I mean that that was just the advice from the
• 30:50
  Speaker 1: poison IVY episode. Okay, but that's what I'm saying, Like,
• 30:53
  Speaker 1: I don't remember giving that advice. I'm I'm impressed as
• 30:56
  Speaker 1: I remember that, because you gotta get that that the
• 30:59
  Speaker 1: poison of off your body and it's it's very greasy.
• 31:02
  Speaker 1: I got poison ivy again the other day. Man, It's terrible.
• 31:06
  Speaker 1: How bad. It was very concentrated in a small area
• 31:10
  Speaker 1: I think, on my genitals, on my ankle, around my ankle,
• 31:15
  Speaker 1: I think, but it was like um, but it was
• 31:19
  Speaker 1: just a study and self control not to touch it.
• 31:23
  Speaker 1: I had zero calumine lotion or anything like that that
• 31:26
  Speaker 1: I could use. It was bad. I officially get it now,
• 31:30
  Speaker 1: because I think when we recorded that I had not yet. Uh,
• 31:34
  Speaker 1: I didn't think I was allergic or whatever. But I've
• 31:36
  Speaker 1: since gotten it a couple of times, including a couple
• 31:39
  Speaker 1: of weeks ago, just like you. Wow, not much though,
• 31:42
  Speaker 1: just a couple of tiny little spots. Maybe yours was
• 31:45
  Speaker 1: sympathy poison ivy maybe because I had it, you know, yeah,
• 31:49
  Speaker 1: my genitals itched. Your genitals always itching sympathy from it? Oh? Man,
• 31:56
  Speaker 1: I think how many times have we said that? Now? Eight?
• 32:00
  Speaker 1: We should put in a little ding a buzzer or something.
• 32:04
  Speaker 1: Let's see we can get Jerry to do that. All right? Hey,
• 32:07
  Speaker 1: do you want to know what Irish spring is in German? Yeah? Irish? Sure? Freeling? Yeah,
• 32:13
  Speaker 1: all right? How is my German great? Is that how
• 32:17
  Speaker 1: you would say it? Irish? Er? I guess? So how's
• 32:21
  Speaker 1: it spelled? Just Irish with an e R no I
• 32:24
  Speaker 1: r I s c h. Yeah, yeah, that sounds about right, okay,
• 32:30
  Speaker 1: and then freeling there's even an oom laut I love
• 32:33
  Speaker 1: tho zoom outs. So do you want to take a
• 32:35
  Speaker 1: break and talk about how to wash hands? Or do
• 32:37
  Speaker 1: you want to wash hands and then take a break. Now,
• 32:39
  Speaker 1: let's let's take that break. Okay, everybody, we'll be right back.
• 33:08
  Speaker 1: All right, we're gonna wash our hands. We're gonna do it.
• 33:11
  Speaker 1: You gotta wet them, you gotta start with water, gotta
• 33:14
  Speaker 1: soap up, and then you gotta really start scrubbing, and
• 33:19
  Speaker 1: especially now these days when they've and this is just
• 33:22
  Speaker 1: you should just do this from now to the end
• 33:23
  Speaker 1: of time, now that we really know how to watch hands. Uh,
• 33:26
  Speaker 1: you know, scrub those palms, scrub the backs, getting between
• 33:29
  Speaker 1: those fingies, getting getting those fingy nails. Uh. They say
• 33:33
  Speaker 1: to seeing Happy Birthday a couple of times. Sure, if
• 33:38
  Speaker 1: you know them. Um, I like to use Uh, I'd
• 33:41
  Speaker 1: like to use really hot water just because it makes
• 33:43
  Speaker 1: me feel like I'm getting them cleaner. It hurts me,
• 33:47
  Speaker 1: does it really? Yeah? He's cold water? No no, no, no,
• 33:51
  Speaker 1: I'm crazy. Um, but I do like warm water, warm
• 33:57
  Speaker 1: towards the hot side, but definitely not hot like I
• 33:59
  Speaker 1: wouldn't care drives it as hot? Yeah, like it's so
• 34:01
  Speaker 1: hot it can barely stand it. Really? Oh boy? That
• 34:06
  Speaker 1: to me, it's just a shy away from that. Uh.
• 34:11
  Speaker 1: And here's something that I've been wanting to say for
• 34:13
  Speaker 1: a long long time because this has been one of
• 34:15
  Speaker 1: Emily's big uh sort of things. Is stuck in her craw? Is?
• 34:20
  Speaker 1: I guess that's not the right things. Something stuck in
• 34:23
  Speaker 1: your craw? No, that's not quite right, but you know
• 34:27
  Speaker 1: what I mean, A thorn in her side? Okay, I
• 34:30
  Speaker 1: could see both working. Is that antibacterial soap is not
• 34:34
  Speaker 1: more effective people it's not. It's not it's not. No,
• 34:38
  Speaker 1: And in fact, it's actually kind of harmful in the
• 34:41
  Speaker 1: larger scheme of things. But it doesn't do anything that
• 34:44
  Speaker 1: soap can't do. No, you're falling for some marketing gobbledegook.
• 34:50
  Speaker 1: Stop it. And I mean it makes sense. You would
• 34:52
  Speaker 1: think like, Okay, I'm washing my hands, but I'm also
• 34:55
  Speaker 1: washing my hands with something that has an antibacterial agent,
• 34:58
  Speaker 1: and so it's killing stuff. And yes, it kills some things,
• 35:02
  Speaker 1: it's true, um, But the problem is is the stuff
• 35:05
  Speaker 1: that it doesn't kill stays around and evolves to be
• 35:09
  Speaker 1: resistant to those anti bio bacterial agents, right, And the
• 35:14
  Speaker 1: problem is that those same bugs aren't just on your
• 35:16
  Speaker 1: hands and don't just encounter soap. We use antibiotics against them,
• 35:21
  Speaker 1: but if they've learned to be resistant from soap washing
• 35:24
  Speaker 1: by you know, billions of people every day, um, it
• 35:28
  Speaker 1: makes it way harder to kill them with antibiotics. And
• 35:31
  Speaker 1: so they finally figured out that some of the antibiotic
• 35:34
  Speaker 1: resistant bugs that we were starting to see, we're basically
• 35:39
  Speaker 1: in training through antibacterial soap. And eventually the I think
• 35:43
  Speaker 1: the f d A band two of the ingredients that
• 35:46
  Speaker 1: that were commonly used in antibacterial soap. Right, Yeah, they
• 35:49
  Speaker 1: ban tri closen and triclocarbon and said use regular soap. Everybody.
• 35:55
  Speaker 1: The FDA said that it's not just me talking no,
• 35:58
  Speaker 1: And I mean, it's because is it that that regular
• 36:01
  Speaker 1: soap does all the same things that that anti bacterial
• 36:05
  Speaker 1: soap does too? And I have to say chuck. So
• 36:08
  Speaker 1: we're talking about handwashing. One of the things that I
• 36:10
  Speaker 1: found astounding in all this is that so handwashing is
• 36:14
  Speaker 1: so prevalent now, but it's not like it was anything
• 36:16
  Speaker 1: new when the when the COVID pandemic came around, right,
• 36:21
  Speaker 1: But apparently it's still relatively new as far as handwashing
• 36:26
  Speaker 1: guidelines go. That wasn't until the eighties that the CDC
• 36:29
  Speaker 1: issued their first handwashing guidelines, and that was for hospitals.
• 36:34
  Speaker 1: Hospitals didn't have handwashing guidelines issued by the CDC until
• 36:38
  Speaker 1: the eighties. Isn't that astounding? It is? But I wonder
• 36:41
  Speaker 1: if that was just because they were like, uh, duh everybody,
• 36:45
  Speaker 1: and then someone said, well, you should probably just codify it.
• 36:49
  Speaker 1: I don't know. I saw that it was in response
• 36:52
  Speaker 1: to some hospital acquired infection outbreaks. So maybe the CDC
• 36:56
  Speaker 1: was like you know this right. And it turns out
• 36:59
  Speaker 1: that hospitals like no, not really yeah, very interesting, doctors
• 37:04
  Speaker 1: were walking around touching their genitals and doing surgery. Yeah.
• 37:11
  Speaker 1: So here's another thing. Liquid soap versus bar soap. You
• 37:14
  Speaker 1: would think that, and I think a lot of people
• 37:17
  Speaker 1: may be disgusted by bar soap that other people use,
• 37:21
  Speaker 1: especially when they're hairy. But they have done studies. They
• 37:26
  Speaker 1: did a study in nineteen sixty five where they contaminated
• 37:30
  Speaker 1: uh the hands of the researchers with five million bacteria
• 37:35
  Speaker 1: and then had them wash their hands and then had
• 37:37
  Speaker 1: other people afterward, and found that the bacteria was not
• 37:40
  Speaker 1: transferred to the second user. Uh. This was confirmed in
• 37:45
  Speaker 1: with another study. Uh. And what they came the conclusion
• 37:48
  Speaker 1: they came to basically is there could be some surface
• 37:52
  Speaker 1: bacteria on a bar soap that's just left out like that,
• 37:55
  Speaker 1: but it definitely doesn't transmit infection. Huh. Well why wouldn't it,
• 38:01
  Speaker 1: I don't know, because they soap. They just showed that
• 38:04
  Speaker 1: it didn't. Huh. Yeah, they showed that it didn't transmit infection.
• 38:07
  Speaker 1: And I mean, I don't know. Maybe it's uh the
• 38:11
  Speaker 1: properties of the soap at work, or maybe it just
• 38:13
  Speaker 1: doesn't live that long on on a surface like that.
• 38:17
  Speaker 1: I could see that. I could see soap not being
• 38:19
  Speaker 1: a very hospitable surface for microbes. But when I do
• 38:23
  Speaker 1: pick up bar soap in the shower, like I always
• 38:25
  Speaker 1: give it a rints off first. You get it wet,
• 38:29
  Speaker 1: get thee get the layer of gunk off first. You know, Yeah,
• 38:32
  Speaker 1: that's true. Um, And I think I think people probably
• 38:37
  Speaker 1: would be grossed out if public restaurants just had a
• 38:39
  Speaker 1: bar soapen there. But it's it's not gonna get you sick.
• 38:43
  Speaker 1: But but I get it. You know, you have those
• 38:46
  Speaker 1: pumps of individual soaps. I get it. It's true. Plus
• 38:50
  Speaker 1: also usually when you encounter liquid soap um it has
• 38:55
  Speaker 1: like other stuff in it that maybe moisturizes your hands
• 38:58
  Speaker 1: or does your things that a bar soap might not.
• 39:02
  Speaker 1: What's the deal with detergent so here's the thing. Most
• 39:06
  Speaker 1: of the stuff that you have in your bathroom right
• 39:09
  Speaker 1: now that you consider soap are actually detergents. A detergent
• 39:14
  Speaker 1: is simply a synthetic soap. The only way for something
• 39:17
  Speaker 1: to qualify as a soap is for it to have
• 39:20
  Speaker 1: gone through supontification station. CRU's right past. I'm glad this
• 39:26
  Speaker 1: came up because Uh, Emily came through when I was researching, researching,
• 39:30
  Speaker 1: and she's like, you know, soap isn't even soap anymore.
• 39:33
  Speaker 1: She's like, they can, they can call it soap legally,
• 39:36
  Speaker 1: but it's not even soap. Yeah. So, so you've got
• 39:39
  Speaker 1: your fats and you've got your um alkaline, and you
• 39:43
  Speaker 1: put them together and they undergo supontification, and you have soap.
• 39:47
  Speaker 1: If you don't start with fats and alkalines and they
• 39:52
  Speaker 1: don't undergo spontification, you have something that does the same
• 39:56
  Speaker 1: thing and in many cases is even more desire, has
• 40:00
  Speaker 1: more desirable traits than just natural soap. But it's just
• 40:03
  Speaker 1: not soap. It's a detergent. And the first detergents, and
• 40:06
  Speaker 1: plenty of detergents still around today were derived from um
• 40:10
  Speaker 1: synthetic chemicals that came from petroleum. Actually, yeah, because the
• 40:15
  Speaker 1: deal was is once they figured out soap many many
• 40:18
  Speaker 1: years ago, they just washed everything with soap, uh, clothes
• 40:22
  Speaker 1: and your dishes, and they would clean floors and it
• 40:27
  Speaker 1: was you know, it's that's not what it was made for.
• 40:29
  Speaker 1: So it would leave a residue. It's called soap scum.
• 40:33
  Speaker 1: And especially when it's mixed with hard water, if it's
• 40:36
  Speaker 1: really high in mineral salt, magnesium and calcium, it's gonna
• 40:40
  Speaker 1: make a lot of soap scum. And it was a
• 40:42
  Speaker 1: big problem back in the old days when it would
• 40:44
  Speaker 1: be left over on your kitchen floor or you know,
• 40:46
  Speaker 1: big time on your washing machine. Yeah, well that was
• 40:49
  Speaker 1: a big, big problem because washing machines came out before
• 40:53
  Speaker 1: laundry detergent did, and it could really gum up the
• 40:56
  Speaker 1: works when you had a soap scum layer that was
• 40:58
  Speaker 1: hard as concrete on that's right. But detergent it's solved
• 41:01
  Speaker 1: all that it did um because detergent doesn't leave soap
• 41:05
  Speaker 1: scumb because it doesn't interact with calcium and magnesium in
• 41:10
  Speaker 1: hard water, which made it vastly preferable to use for laundry,
• 41:14
  Speaker 1: which is by the first detergents that they ever came
• 41:16
  Speaker 1: out with were laundry detergents, and specifically, from what I saw,
• 41:19
  Speaker 1: the first detergent was draft in, which is still around today.
• 41:25
  Speaker 1: You can get draft really yeah, yeah, it's still very
• 41:28
  Speaker 1: much around and in Canada it's called ivory snow because
• 41:32
  Speaker 1: Canadians just weird with everything. I've heard of Ivory Snow
• 41:35
  Speaker 1: didn't giving draft everything. Well, Draft came around and that
• 41:41
  Speaker 1: handled like pretty decently soiled things, but nothing nothing too heavy.
• 41:47
  Speaker 1: Uh And so was it the same company that went
• 41:50
  Speaker 1: on to create Tied. I'm pretty sure it was Procter
• 41:53
  Speaker 1: and Gamble that did Draft. Did they do Tied? To
• 41:56
  Speaker 1: mm hmm. I want to say yes, I want to too,
• 41:59
  Speaker 1: but I don't want to get it. Would actually go
• 42:02
  Speaker 1: with yes, okay. Uh. The next one, yeah, the next
• 42:05
  Speaker 1: big one in three was Tied, and that was a
• 42:09
  Speaker 1: combination of these synthetic surfactants and something called Builders, and
• 42:14
  Speaker 1: the Builders kind of worked in concert with the synthetic
• 42:17
  Speaker 1: surfactants to just kind of get out tougher stains. And
• 42:22
  Speaker 1: in nineteen forty six they brought it onto the test
• 42:25
  Speaker 1: market as a heavy duty detergent. Everyone loved it and
• 42:29
  Speaker 1: it's this is kind of cool, but where did you
• 42:31
  Speaker 1: get this? Actually, this piece, I think that one was
• 42:34
  Speaker 1: from Thought Company. And I also want to give a
• 42:36
  Speaker 1: shout out to another Thought Company piece that was written
• 42:40
  Speaker 1: by an historian named Judith Ridner who gave us a
• 42:43
  Speaker 1: lot of the history stuff too well. Tide has tried
• 42:47
  Speaker 1: to improve it a lot over the years, and has
• 42:49
  Speaker 1: not stopped. And it says that each year they basically
• 42:54
  Speaker 1: try and duplicate mineral content of the water in all
• 42:58
  Speaker 1: parts of the US. Like what what? What are all
• 43:00
  Speaker 1: the kinds of water that we have in the United States?
• 43:03
  Speaker 1: And let's do fifty test loads with tie just to
• 43:07
  Speaker 1: make sure we're still up to snuff. Yeah, every year,
• 43:11
  Speaker 1: fifty thousand test loads. Imagine being the person in charge
• 43:14
  Speaker 1: of that laundry, wouldn't you just go just totally out
• 43:17
  Speaker 1: of it? Pretty bad? Fifty thousand. I wouldn't make it
• 43:23
  Speaker 1: to fifty. Yeah, Undy taking a stand against laundry um.
• 43:31
  Speaker 1: Although I have to say so. One of the things
• 43:33
  Speaker 1: we're talking about castile soap um in addition to just
• 43:36
  Speaker 1: being soap, it doesn't it's known to do a lot
• 43:39
  Speaker 1: of stuff, and one of the things supposedly is laundry.
• 43:41
  Speaker 1: So I did a test on a grease staying on
• 43:44
  Speaker 1: some shorts with some cast steel soap, and I will
• 43:49
  Speaker 1: report back eventually to let you know if it worked. Okay,
• 43:51
  Speaker 1: where was treated? It on the leg? Not too far
• 43:56
  Speaker 1: from the genitals. Now that you mentioned ding ding so
• 44:01
  Speaker 1: um so a detergent again, it's just a synthetic a
• 44:05
  Speaker 1: synthetic soap and it doesn't do anything differently. But the
• 44:08
  Speaker 1: reason why companies preferred detergents is because they can control
• 44:13
  Speaker 1: it a lot more. It's something that they create themselves.
• 44:16
  Speaker 1: They don't have to rely on nature. They don't have
• 44:18
  Speaker 1: to keep um a high priest on the payroll to
• 44:21
  Speaker 1: oversee the goat sacrifices to get the tall. Oh, it's
• 44:24
  Speaker 1: just a lot easier to control from beginning to end. Um.
• 44:28
  Speaker 1: The problem is is a lot of times some of
• 44:31
  Speaker 1: those stuff, some of those um synthetic detergents can be
• 44:35
  Speaker 1: um harsh on your skin. Yeah, they can dry things out,
• 44:39
  Speaker 1: It can be irritants for sure. If you have xema,
• 44:43
  Speaker 1: that's that's definitely something that you might or dermatitis. And uh,
• 44:47
  Speaker 1: Emily has had a lot of success with people that
• 44:49
  Speaker 1: specifically use her soap because it's real soap and they
• 44:52
  Speaker 1: had excellent skin problems and that really helped it out. Yeah. Yeah,
• 44:57
  Speaker 1: because I mean, like even soap haz it's high on
• 45:00
  Speaker 1: the on the pH scale, higher than natural skin pH,
• 45:04
  Speaker 1: but it's usually much lower than say like a detergent.
• 45:07
  Speaker 1: The thing is is modern chemistry and modern soap bank
• 45:10
  Speaker 1: and can can adjust things as needed to make things
• 45:13
  Speaker 1: easier on your skin for sure. Yeah, and those detergents
• 45:16
  Speaker 1: aren't great for getting that that gray water getting into
• 45:20
  Speaker 1: the eventual fresh water supply. It's no good for animals
• 45:23
  Speaker 1: and fishies especially no supposedly you know how soap surfactants.
• 45:28
  Speaker 1: Detergents are as well, which means that they break the
• 45:31
  Speaker 1: surface tension of water, which makes it easier for for
• 45:34
  Speaker 1: fish to um absorb all the gunk that we put
• 45:39
  Speaker 1: in the water. Along with detergents too, so it's bad
• 45:43
  Speaker 1: on that side. And it also stretches out and breaks
• 45:46
  Speaker 1: through their the membrane that keeps them gooey, which is
• 45:53
  Speaker 1: not good for fish either. It's no good fish just
• 45:56
  Speaker 1: need to use soap. I don't know what their problem is.
• 45:58
  Speaker 1: Get clean you and smell so fishy? Right? Have you
• 46:02
  Speaker 1: got anything else about soap? Got nothing else? Use it? People?
• 46:06
  Speaker 1: Wash your hands a lot, yep, wash your hands. Everybody
• 46:09
  Speaker 1: say you're abc, say happy birthday twice, but really get
• 46:12
  Speaker 1: a good latherer going and wash them a lot. Okay, Okay,
• 46:17
  Speaker 1: And since we said okay a couple of times and genitals,
• 46:20
  Speaker 1: god knows how many times, it's time for a listener
• 46:22
  Speaker 1: to me, I'm gonna call this hot off the presses. Uh.
• 46:27
  Speaker 1: You guys don't know this, but we are playing it
• 46:30
  Speaker 1: dangerously close here lately with our recording schedule, too close
• 46:34
  Speaker 1: for our comfort. So things that we're recording are coming
• 46:37
  Speaker 1: out days later, and that means the corrections are coming
• 46:40
  Speaker 1: just days later. So this was about the recently released
• 46:44
  Speaker 1: Billy the kid Win. Hey, guys, love the show. It
• 46:47
  Speaker 1: seriously keeps my work day interesting. Just listen to the
• 46:49
  Speaker 1: ability to kids short stuff and really enjoyed it. But
• 46:52
  Speaker 1: I thought i'd share a tidbit of info. You mentioned
• 46:55
  Speaker 1: that Billy went to slice up a bit of yearling.
• 46:57
  Speaker 1: Uh a k A horse meat for most coital snack.
• 47:00
  Speaker 1: I'm from Wyoming and my family raised his horses as
• 47:03
  Speaker 1: well as beef and show cattle. I just thought i'd share.
• 47:06
  Speaker 1: In the livestock industry, technically almost all live stock is
• 47:11
  Speaker 1: a yearling once they've hit a year of age, especially
• 47:15
  Speaker 1: especially common to call younger butcher cattle yearlings. Um. And
• 47:19
  Speaker 1: then I looked up the movie The Yearling. Remember that
• 47:22
  Speaker 1: it's about that little baby deer. So oh, I thought
• 47:25
  Speaker 1: that was about a horse too. I think it's about
• 47:27
  Speaker 1: a deer or at least there's a deer on the cover. Well,
• 47:31
  Speaker 1: that's probably about a deer. That very misleading of it.
• 47:34
  Speaker 1: Was it either that or like the person who was
• 47:37
  Speaker 1: in charge of the cover design didn't bother to read
• 47:39
  Speaker 1: the book. Well, Jewel says this. While it's very possible
• 47:43
  Speaker 1: it was a horse, because people did eat horses back then.
• 47:46
  Speaker 1: Yearling horses have don't have much meat on them, so
• 47:49
  Speaker 1: unless the family was really starving, it's unlikely they butcher
• 47:51
  Speaker 1: a horse that young for dinner. More than likely, Billy
• 47:55
  Speaker 1: was carving up a little bit of beef. Okay, that
• 47:57
  Speaker 1: makes a little more sense. But is this from Jewel?
• 48:00
  Speaker 1: Did you say as a Jewel? The singer, well, it's
• 48:03
  Speaker 1: from a Jewel. I don't know if I don't think
• 48:05
  Speaker 1: it's No, it's not because I'm looking at the last
• 48:07
  Speaker 1: name now, Okay, I don't know what Jewel's last name is.
• 48:10
  Speaker 1: I didn't even realize she had a last name. I
• 48:12
  Speaker 1: want to say it's Cuture or something like that. Okay, Well,
• 48:16
  Speaker 1: either way, she's great because I was listening to some
• 48:18
  Speaker 1: of her old stuff not too long ago for SERI reason, yeah,
• 48:22
  Speaker 1: and I was like, this is still really good music. Okay, Yeah,
• 48:27
  Speaker 1: give Jewel a listen, Chuck, I think you'd be like
• 48:29
  Speaker 1: Josh is right. Well, thank you Jewel for writing though. Yeah,
• 48:33
  Speaker 1: thank you other Jewel for writing in And if you're
• 48:36
  Speaker 1: the same Jewel, I'm onto you. If you want to
• 48:40
  Speaker 1: get in touch with this, like Jewel did, you can
• 48:43
  Speaker 1: send an email. Like Jewel did, go ahead and send
• 48:46
  Speaker 1: it off to Stuff Podcasts at iHeart radio dot com.
• 48:52
  Speaker 1: Stuff you Should Know is a production of iHeart Radio's
• 48:54
  Speaker 1: How Stuff Works for more podcasts for my heart Radio
• 48:57
  Speaker 1: because at the iHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or where
• 48:59
  Speaker 1: ever you listen to your favorite shows.