What Soap For You?

A new report on soaps says that we are better off with ordinary soap instead of antibacterial soap, because antibacterial soaps may cause our resistance to disease to be reduced.
Here's the report, but as I see it there's far more to the question.

Up until a year ago we sold acid based soap, which has a pH more aligned with your skin. Any 'normal' soap is alkaline. A major ingredient of soap is Lye, a very alkaline substance. This really makes no sense when we realise that we already have our own antibacterial system in the body, and a very clever recycling one at that. It's called sweat.

Sweat takes acid wastes and lets them flow onto the skin. Because they are acid, they are also antibacterial, so the (unwashed) body looks after itself by killing bacteria 'on arrival'. It's our first line of defence for that vast area of skin we present to the atmosphere every day.

So what do we modern 'Who-Mans' do with this acid mantle? Wash it off as fast as we can... with ALKALINE SOAP! Then we jump out of the shower and let airborne bacteria come on down for a free, safe feed and multiply session! Du-Oh!

We gave up on the Circe acid soap for purely economic reasons. It cost too much and didn't sell much because adding freight made it hard to justify without convincing people with what I just discussed here. It's still available here, but there's another helpful way.

Our Atopia Shower Head uses Vitamin C to neutralise chlorine and output mildly acidic water.