What Might Be Lurking in your Antibacterial Soap?
What Might Be Lurking in your Antibacterial Soap?
You can’t have a clean home without anti-bacterial cleaning products and soaps, right? Actually, it turns out that not only is your anti-bacterial soap is not the best option for sanitizing your skin, but it’s full of tons of active ingredients that aren’t good for you. When you start to read the labels of your anti-bacterial soap, you’ll start to notice a trend: you can’t pronounce any of the ingredients!
That’s likely because these ingredients are harmful, synthetic, and should be nixed right away. If your ingredient list is like reading a novel with words you can barely pronounce, it’s time to rethink what you’re putting on your body. It’s time to switch to natural soaps with ingredients you’re already using in your house. Take a look at what types of things on found in the antibacterial soap you have been using.
What is triclosan?
The U.S. Food and Drug Administration is taking notice of the use of triclosan, a prime ingredient found in most hand soaps. According to the FDA, this common hand soap ingredient and over a dozen others are now going to be banned because of their harmful effects.
If you think about how long you’ve been using these products, it can be disturbing to realize that these are now being banned by the US FDA when you’ve already applied them to your skin for many years. Triclosan and other harmful ingredients found in antibacterial soaps are HELPING bacteria to grow!
Understanding the harm in antibacterial soap
It’s important to look at what could be causing bacteria to grow from using antibacterial soap. Apparently over time, the triclosan and other ingredients are making the bacteria more resistant, which leads to mutation and growth. In addition, triclosan is harming the environment when it reaches lakes, streams, soil, and dust in the environment from going down your drain.
Not only is it hurting you, but it’s hurting nature and turning into a dangerous dioxin, similar to a chemical pesticide. For these reasons, it only makes sense that the FDA would ban it from antibacterial soaps.
The good news and the bad news
The good news now is that the FDA is putting a stop to all of this right away, effective the first of the year for 2017, and your family and nature will be able to stay safe from getting this into your home in the future.
Hand soap will be changing their ingredients and other, regular soaps with water are just as effective as brands that spout having antibacterial agents. Now that the harmful chemicals are going to be avoided by the public, hand soaps can start to feature healthier ingredients to keep families safe around the country.
The bad news is that some companies have started replacing the banned triclosan with other ingredients that are actually just as harmful when combined together. While you may not see triclosan on that scary, long list of ingredients, there may be other ingredients listed that you don’t recognize that are just as harmful. The best way to defeat this problem is to stick with organic, natural brands that are using ingredients you’ve actually heard of and you can read the list of ingredients in just a few seconds.
After studying antibacterial soaps since the 70’s, the FDA has finally declared that the active ingredients such as triclosan and 18 others found in these soaps are harmful to people and the environment. With the ban of these ingredients taking place next year, it’s important going forward to choose soaps with ingredients that you recognize before choosing a new brand for your family’s daily use.
Dr. Peter Fraser
32 Brock Road North
Puslinch, Ontario
TeL: 519 763 1200
