Why Soap is Critical to Cleanliness? Washing with soap and water is a natural and common way to achieve cleanliness. However, did you ever wonder how soap cleans or who water by itself is not enough?
Water has a high surface tension. This means that water droplets (composed of units called molecules) cling so tightly that the water beads up rather than penetrates the dirt or whatever is soiling your hands. Soap helps to lower the surface tension of the water by interacting with the water and forming a mixture called an emulsion.
Scrubbing with soap helps to perpetuate the development of this emulsion and create negative charges which surround the dirt particles trapped in the soapy mixture. since like charges (eight both negative or both positive) repel each other, this helps to keep the dirt and other particles afloat in the soap/water emulsion. The mixture of soap and water through the action of scrubbing keeps the dirt particles in suspension. Running water can then rinse the whole mixture away leaving the hands clean and refreshed.
The best news is that textbook knowledge translates to real-life benefits. Last winter, a director in a state-funded day care center conducted her own study of the effect of scrupulous hand-washing on minimizing the spread of illness in the center.
According to the direct, the incidence of colds and flu among both the children and the staff was significantly reduced-a welcome change over the previous year.