Millions of people use antibacterial soaps every day, believing that their germ-killing ability will keep them and their families healthier. Lately I haven't been able to find a regular plain soap, all I have found was antibacterial. These soaps claiming to kill all harmful bacterial. But are these antibacterial soaps really killing bad germs or too much of the good bacteria?

So what is the difference between regular soap and antibacterial soap? All soaps are antibacterial, meaning they all kill germs. According to one study the normal, boring soap will kill about 99.4% of the bacteria on your skin. Antibacterial soaps increase it to only about 99.6% (for triclosan soap). Thats not a huge difference but it’s still an improvement. So is it really better? Not necessarily, there’s actually two potential problems here.

The first problem is that you have some good bacteria living on you, too. Some of the bacteria on your skin actually help you by fighting off other bad bacteria. But these antibacterial chemicals kill them all. By killing the good bacteria on your skin, it can actually make it easier for bad bacteria to make you sick.

The second reason is something called ’bacterial resistance’. This happens because of the 0.4% of bacteria that the soap doesn’t kill. The first time you wash your hands with an antibacterial soap, you kill off the weakest 99.6% of the bacteria, leaving your whole body free for the strongest 0.4%, which spread out to take up the extra room. The next time you wash your hands, you’ll kill off the weakest of those bacteria, giving the strongest ones room to spread out. The cycle repeats until you’ve got a whole bunch of bacteria that can’t be killed by the chemical you’re using. Making you immune to the abilities of the chemical.

The place that this is really a problem is in hospitals and nursing homes. Some people in these places don’t really need the extra 2% protection that antibacterial soaps can give them. But sick and elderly people along with the doctors and nurses around them all the time definitely do. So if people who don’t need the extra protection are using it all the time, there’s a lot germs out there that are resistant to the drugs. When those bacteria get into a hospital, the drugs can no longer be used to kill them.

Why don’t we get the same problem with regular soaps? Well, to some extent we do. There are a few bacteria that can’t be killed by regular soap. But they can be killed by certain antibacterial chemicals. This is why resistance to these chemicals is so important. If the bacteria are already resistant to one thing and then become resistant to another and another and another, sooner or later there won’t be anything left for us to use to get rid of them when they are really a problem.