Why do We use Soap to Clean Ourselves?
Soap is one of the things which we take for granted. But it is an extremely useful substance in everyday life, especially in personal care products. Soap is known as an excellent cleanser because of its ability to act as an emulsifying agent. In chemistry, one of the common methods of cleaning is to make the contaminated element to dissolve and then rinse it away. Same work is done by the soap. In addition to soap, there are several other ways to clean our body, but none of them exists without some side effect. In fact, all other methods are less effective and more complicated and even not contain all the properties as that of soap. Moreover, soap is non-toxic and perfectly safe for human exposure which adds further benefit. Below are some of the reasons why we use soap to clean ourselves:
- Water alone is insufficient to clean:
We use soap as a cleaning substance because water alone is ineffective to clean the dirt and oil of our skin. As we apply soap to our skin, it starts dissolving dirt and oil which cannot be removed only by water application. It penetrates in the upper layer of the skin and dissolves all embedded oil and dirt. At the same time when we use water side by side soap get rinsed by it.
- Molecular Structure of Soap:
Soaps are the fatty acids salts of potassium or sodium, produced by a process called saponification. It involves the hydrolysis of fats. Each molecule of soap has a long chain of hydrocarbon sometimes referred to as "tail" and a carboxylate structure called "head". Its molecular structure with a water-soluble head and oil soluble tail makes soap a very effective and efficient cleaning agent. This structure converts the two-step cleaning process into one. In water, the potassium or sodium ions float freely, thereby leaving a negative charge head. Soap acts as an emulsifier by suspending oil and dirt in a way that it can be easily removed.
Dirt, oil and grease are non-polar compounds and insoluble in water. When soap is mixed with any of these compounds, the non-polar hydrocarbon portion of the soap molecules break up the non-polar oil molecules. A unique type of micelle structure is formed afterwards which attaches oil and dirt to it, hence it can be easily removed. The molecules of soap work as a bar magnet, with hydrophilic molecules (water-attracting) at the north place and hydrophobic molecules (water-repellent) at the south place. Another functionality of soap is that reduces the surface tension of water so it gets wet readily rather than balling on the surface when needed to be cleaned.
- Removes Bacteria and other Impurities:
Oil produced by our skin is actually dirt and it traps bacteria and other impurities to it. As the chemical properties of water and oil are different so they are unable to mix with each other. Soaps have such chemical properties which mix both oil and water. The chain-like structure binds oil with it and other end holds water molecules. This makes not only dirt to get removed but it also washes away bacteria and other impurities with it which cause illness. Moreover, the packaging of soap is made in a way that it keeps the soap away from environmental impurities thus producing best results when used.
