I'm Not a Dirty Hippie: Handsoap Edition

I'm pulling it rather close today on this one, but I had an unexpected day off of work due to a whopping 2 inches of snow (that's how we roll in central AR), so after getting the house straightened and dusted, I spent the day trying to stay warm on the couch under a blanket with a mug of turkey broth sprinkled with cayenne pepper...and season one of "The Big Bang Theory." To chase a rabbit here, the show was mildly amusing, but not something I want to commit to for the four seasons that are out already. However, they had to go and leave me hangin' at the end of the last show which I can't STAND, so once again, I'm going to get sucked into something I don't care for just because I have an annoying lack of ability to handle suspense. For the record that is the ONLY reason I read all four books of "Twilight." Period. And just so you know Bella, everything was remarkably uninteresting once you were a vampire. So there.

So um, YEAH! Natural handsoap that is free from harmful chemicals!!! Here's the lineup:



Castile soap, vegetable glycerin, and water. You can use whatever kind of castile soap you want but I like Tea Tree Soap because tea tree is naturally antibacterial and antifungal. The glycerin is for moisture. It is a natural humectant, which means will help absorb moisture from the air.

Add 3 Tbsp of castile soap and 1 tsp of glycerin per cup of water. Make sure they are mixed well together before adding to the pump because if soap gets in the little tube it will ruin the foaming pump.

Oh yeah, you'll also need a foaming pump :) You can buy a super expensive one from Pampered Chef OR you can do what I did and buy some foaming soap on sale for $2 at Target and dump out the soap that came in it.

Why would you want to dump out that perfectly good soap? Like I recommended last week, visit the handy little website Skindeep, the EWG's safe cosmetic database. Look up sodium lauryl sulfate - the stuff they put in there to make products foam and clean more easily by reducing the surface tension of a liquid, allowing it to spread more easily. Scary stuff! Also scary is triclosan - the anti-bacterial chemical present in many soaps. Katie @ Kitchen Stewardship does a great job talking about the dangers of anti-bacterials HERE. Did you know that earlier this year the FDA posted a Consumer Update on triclosan? Here are some interesting points from their update:

• "Animal studies have shown that triclosan alters hormone regulation. However, the data showing effects in animals don't always predict effects in humans." (Oh well that makes me feel a heck of a lot better.)
  
• "Studies in bacteria have raised the possibility that triclosan contributes to making bacteria resistant to antibiotics."
• "At this time, the FDA does not have evidence that triclosan in antibacterial soaps and body washes provides any benefit over washing with regular soap and water."

As a freshmen in college, we performed a simple lab experiment in microbiology lab where we took swabs of places where lots of germs were likely to be present, and grew them in a culture. In these cultures we placed sterile discs coated with different soaps and sanitizers, some antibacterial, some not. In the end, we discovered that the antibacterial products did not work any better than those products which did not contain triclosan. (An interesting side note: Bath and Body works hand sanitizer did nothing. Zilch. Nada. I haven't used it since).

Now my professor informed us that the results of this experiment stay the same year after year. The regular soap works just the same as the antibacterial and the B&B Works does nothings. So why is it that undergraduate students can easily discover this information and the FDA needs more and more testing before they agree that triclosan is an unneeded AND harmful agent?

In the meantime, try this simple recipe. It takes very little time and will be another small step in reducing your family's exposure to harmful chemicals.

• This post is linked at The Healthy Home Economist's "Monday Mania 1/17/2011"