Germaphobes, we have some bad news for you.
Korean scientists have found that antibacterial soap is no more effective at killing bacteria than normal soap.
According to the team at Korea University, the antibacterial soap market in the US is worth nearly $1 billion (£6.5 million) a year.
However, after a detailed study – which involved researchers testing twenty bacterial strains against plain and antibacterial soaps for 20 seconds at 22°C and 20 seconds 40°C – researchers found that the plain soap performed just as well.
Interestingly, the problem wasn’t exactly that the bacterial soaps didn’t perform better… it was that it took them 9 hours to do their work, which is obviously little use when most people wash their hands for mere seconds.
In the results section of the report, the researchers explained: ‘These results suggest that although triclosan-containing soap does have antibacterial activity, the effects are not apparent during the… Read the full story