In a lather over ... well ... LATHER

We go through soap in this house like a Holiness church goes through snakes. Handsoap, mostly. I used to use the plain 'ole Equate brand from MegaLoMart, but found that it looked bad as I filled and refilled it. So, now I splurge and at the beginning of each month, I stock up on liquid hand soap at Ross and Marshall's. Designer soap for a fraction of the price.

It didn't really occur to me until last night, but Jim typically gives the hand soap 3 or 4 pumps before washing his hands. He has always been more attentive to hand washing than I, so I just chalked it up to his OCD. However, last night he was cleaning the bathtub and complained that the cleaner was not foaming, and therefore could not be cleaning.

My father thinks the same thing! If his shampoo doesn't swallow him in a cascade of suds, he won't use it. His perception is that it's not getting his hair clean. Men need suds.

But it's not just men. Women need suds, too. However, the chemistry of soap (that I remember from high school) indicates otherwise. It's not the foaming agent that cleans, it's the surfactant. So, why the suds at all?

There are a few good reasons for suds. They help keep the temperature warm and they trap the dirt that the soap disperses. That's good, if you are changing your dishwashing water often. Not so good if you use the same sink of water for the entire load.

So, basically, manufacturers decided that suds = cleanliness and passed that tidbit onto consumers, who bought it hook, line and sinker. The more bubbles and foam, the greater the "cleansing action". What a bunch of hooey. All the extra sudsing does is make it necessary to use more water to rinse this agent off completely. I'm not saying that suds are Satan, and they are certainly nice when they surround you in the tub, but I am saying that the mindset that they are a necessary part of cleaning is just plain untrue.

My new front loading washing machine uses special "He" (high-efficiency) detergent. Do you know the ONLY difference in this detergent and the other? Less suds. Because the washer uses so much less water, it can't rinse all of the sudsing agent out of the clothing. So, manufacturers had to scramble to make a detergent with less foam so consumers wouldn't use less of the original. Again, we've been had. A fraction of the original cleans just as well as 1/2 capful of the new, and uses less water. It's a win-win for consumers and a "oh crap" for manufacturers.

So, the next time you wash your hands, use a dime-sized amount of soap, tap water, rub-rub-rub and rinse well. That's all you need. No suds required.