U. S. Food and Drug Administration FDA Consumer February 1979 ALL THAT LATHERS IS NOT SOAP by Harold Hopkins You've been near it all your life, bassinet to bath to boudoir. It was used behind your ears before perfume was used there. It has removed dirt and grime from your face, fingers, and knees. If you've said naughty words your mother may have threatened to wash out your mouth with it. It has cleansed you, made you smell good, added a glow to your complexion, and helped make you feel fresher. But what do you really know about soap? Well, in the first place the product you regard as soap may not be soap at all, but a synthetic detergent "beauty" or "bath" bar. These and similar names have been used by copywriters to spare the consumer the awful knowledge that she is not bathing herself with real soap, but with a synthetic detergent which, ironically, is for some purposes superior to soap. Some "soap" bars may consist of soap and synthetic detergent. For purposes of excluding ordinary soap from regulation as a cosmetic, FDA defines it as a product in which most of the nonvolatile matter consists of an alkali salt of fatty acids and whose detergent properties are due to these alkali-fatty acid compounds. Our ancestors often made their own soap for laundering, cleaning, and bathing from animal fats and wood ashes. Fortunately, plain soap of the non-cosmetic, non-drug variety has earned a good reputation. Apart from the familiar sting from getting soap into your eyes or the peril of slipping on a bar in the bathtub or shower, common bath and hand soap is relatively safe. In fact we often use it to remove other substances from our hands and skin that we think are a lot less safe. To get more information on how you can obtain plain soap Click Here
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