Importance of soap

importance of soap

------------------------------------------------- Revised 02/01/2021
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Employees must wash hands sign

Prepper's love soap. We like to make home-made soaps and we
have our favorite commercial brands, such as:

Dr. Bronners bar soap , pictured right
Dr. Bronner's castile soap liquid, also pictured right
Charlie's laundry soap
Kirk's Castile bar soap
Fels Naptha bar soap
Zote bar s oap

Soap is beneficial for many more reasons...

#2: Soap keeps your skin healthy!
Did you know the largest organ you have is your epidermis? Your
epidermis is your skin and soap can help your skin stay healthy.
Take good care of your skin because your skin has a vital role in
your health.

First, skin is the largest surface area and also your largest
defense of bacteria. Did you know that your skin right now may
be covered in millions of bacteria (both harmful and beneficial)?
Harmful bacteria can gain direct entry into your body through a
break in the skin, but you can wash them away with soap. This is
especially important when there's break in the skin.

Another point of entry is through transfer of germs in unclean
hands to your nose and mouth, as well as your ears and eyes. If
you're clean you'll reduce the chances that harmful bacteria will
get into your body.

While hands can transfer dirt, if you get a cut, a scratch a burn or
larger injury to the skin, it's even more important to keep clean to
keep bacteria. And it's not just through a cut. Daily you're skin
faces influences against infection, such as:

Scrapes
Bitter cold
Scorching sun
Chapping wind

Soap cleans and also may hydrate your skin if it includes
moisturizers, which helps keep your skin healthy. Some soaps
also include essential oils, such as lavender, which can be
beneficial to promote healthy skin. Lavender essential oil is an
antibacterial that can also combat ringworm and foot fungus, for
example.

#3: Soap helps avoid food borne illnesses.
It's critically important for you and members of your household to
wash hands often to avoid illness, especially food born illnesses.
It's disgusting to think about, but fecal matter can spread from
hands to all sorts of surfaces, such as door handles, on railings,
and on countertops and eventually these ports of entry can make
way to your mouth and transfer to your food and cause you to get
sick.

Germs love to hide and spread to cooking utensils, cutting boards
and other places in the kitchen, such as the sink ~ and from there
it makes its way to your food. It's relatively easy to get sick from
fecal contamination such as E. C oli food poisoning, dysentary or
the like.

It's appalling to think that you may be ingesting small quantities
of human or animal feces in your food and water. The harmful
bacteria and germs get into food because someone didn't wash
hands before preparing food or before eating it. This little fact
will have you thinking more when you see that little sign in
restaurants that reads, "Employees must wash hands."

The remote control and cell phone are two of the most common
places you'll find fecal matter nesting. Illnesses from hand to
food can escalate when people are in close proximity to one
another such as on cruise ships.

Fecal matter can cause the following ailments:

Campylobacteriosis (food borne illness that may cause a
cramps, bloody diarrhea, fever, pain and other dysentery
symptoms).

Cholera (acute diarrheal illness that may cause death).

Ecoli (can cause diarrhea and kidney damage).

Giardia (microscopic parasite found in soil, food or water
contaminated with feces that can cause diarrheal illness).

Gastoenteritis (virus germ).

Hepatitis A (a liver infection that's caused by a virus that's
spread from the feces of an infected person).

norovirus (contagious virus that can infect anyone that
causes diarrhea, nausea, stomach pain and vomiting).

rotavirus (common illness in infants and children that
causes diarrhea, vomiting, fever and abdominal pain).

salmonella (food borne illness that may come from food
contaminated by unwashed hands of a food handler).

Shigella (closely related to E-coli, Shigella is a group of
bacteria that causes diarrhea, fever and stomach cramps two
days after exposure to the bacteria).

#4: Soap can prevent infections.
While you can clean up without soap in an emergency, soap is
always preferable. Using soap can help you avoid a bacterial
infection without the use of an antibacterial. Your skin is under a
constant barrage and threat of bacteria from breaks in the skin
and this is one of the main reasons to use soap after you get a
cut, scrape or abrasion to the skin. Soap works like an
antibacterial to lift and help flush the skin of the bad bacteria.

Not all soaps contain antibacterials, but all soaps help fight
bacteria. Washing hands with soap and warm water is the best
antibacterial routine, but even if you have no soap you should
wash your hands with just plain water. It helps prevent infections.

In case you don't think an infection from a cut is any big deal,
then read about Sepsis. One cut can kill you so always treat every
cut or scrape with care and use soap and water as soon as
possible.

Campsuds washes can help you stay clean while camping or
bugging out. Campsuds is concentrated to wash dishes, hands,
face hair clothing for camping / bugging out. It's eco-friendly too
(vegetable-derived ingredients with natural essential oils).

#5: Soap helps you wash dishes, avoid cross-
contamination of foods
Another obvious benefit of soap is that it effectively helps you
wash dishes, so that you won't get sick from food particles that
have spoiled. While you can wash and clean without soap ~ it's
definitely easier to clean your pots, pans, plates, utensils and
glasses with dishwashing soap. Be sure to wash cutting surfaces
properly as well, such as cutting boards an utensils to avoid cross
contamination of food. Remember to wash grills, too!

Germs can grow quickly in heat, and food from the grill allowed to
fester can leave behind dangerous bacteria. While you can scrape
away the food and boil away germs, and while you can use salt
as an abrasive agent, nothing beats dish soap for really getting
your dishes, pots, pans and grills clean. The only exception to
this rule is that for your Lodge cast iron cookware and other cast
iron pans you should never use soap. Heat alone won't get rid of
the germs on your grills so wash them.

Another way to avoid cross contamination of foods, like raw
meats, is to wash your hands with soap and water before any
food preparation and wash them often! If you touch raw meat you
can inadvertently spread Listeria or E. coli for example by using a
knife or cutting board first on the meat and then on fruit or
vegetables. This is a common mistake that can cost lives. Here
again, soap is important to survival.

#6: Clean clothes.
Without soap or detergent you will not be able to clean socks,
underwear and garments very well. You might be surprised to
learn that you can clean clothes without soap. It may seem
inconsequential, but having clean clothes can impact your overall
health and here's why:

Socks. Clean socks are very important to survival. The
military learned to avoid trenchfoot by keeping feet clean.

Underwear. If your undergarments aren't clean it can give
way to painful anal fissures.

#7: Soap provides a morale boost!
Wiping away the grungy dirt is an exhiliarating feeling upon
emerging from a shower, It's good hygiene, but it's also an
emotional boost in uncertain times.

Showers certainly provide an emotional boost to homeless.
Soap is a coveted item among all the hygienic items to
receive at homeless shelters.

Rape victims often head to the showers immediately
following attack as a way to cleanse the soul and mentally
wash away the attacker.

The importance of having and using soap in long-term survival is
something you can't understate.

What's a good laundry soap for homesteading?
For sensitive skin and for off-grid living, consider stocking up on
Charlie’s Laundry Soap because it's soothing, safe, effective and
biodegradable detergent that leaves nothing but the sweet smell
of clean between your clothes and your skin.

Zote bar soap is a homesteading favorite for many reasons ~ top
on the list is that you can make your own laundry detergent.

Learn to make your own laundry detergent.
There are many reasons for stockpiling soap, and you also should
learn to make soap. Start with a bar soap, like Fels Naptha or
Zote soap. Here's how to make your own laundry detergent from
bar soap.

Soap is on our list of the 37 non-food items to hoard, and with
good reason. Cleanliness has a role survival and obviously soap
has a role in keeping you clean, but what will you do when you're
out of soap and can't get any more soap or handcraft your own
soap? Preppers must always know how to "make do, or do
without." Learn now how to wash without soap.

Happy endings...
In the prepping rule of three, you can't live three minutes without
air, three days without water and three weeks without food.
Applying this to soap, you probably couldn't live three months
without soap in a survival situation. The importance of soap in
survival is something you can't understate.

Related articles on self-sufficiency...

Prepare to live happily ever after with us at happypreppers.com - the emergency
preparedness Web site of prepping, survival, homesteading, and self-reliance.

Importance of Soap
Soap can play a vital role in survival

Soap is a survival tool!
Bar soap, liquid soaps, and detergents each are critical
components of prepping for the long term ~ and it's not just
because you won't stink. Don't overlook the importance of soap!

Cleanliness is a factor to your overall health and well being, but
it's important for survival for many reasons, though you can learn
to make do without soap. This prepping article underscores the
significance of soap in survival...

Importance of Soap in Prepping
You may not have given it much thought until now, but soap can
have a critical role in survival, because it helps you fight
infections and disease. Your hands pick up most of the infectious
material, so washing your hands with soap and water is the best
way to wash away the infectious material. Soap is good to
stockpile and learn how to make because of the many benefits.

Here are some of the many benefits of soap in survival:

#1: Soap works better than a hand-sanitizer.
A hand sanitizer only kills the germs. It won't wipe away the dirt,
grime and other stuff that cakes on your hands. Soap goes
beyond getting rid of the germs. It works by suspending dirt, oils,
bacteria and germs to wash them all away from your skin.

Soap gets rid of bacteria, germs, dirt, grime and oil.
Wash your hands with soap and water as often as you can to get
rid of germs and grime. It's important to do this several times a
day (and it's so much more than for cleanliness purposes)!

Germs are everywhere. Think of the dirty places your hands have
been today: