
Antibacterial soaps have all the same properties as regular soap, but with an extra ingredient added that is intended to stop the bacteria remaining on your skin from replicating.
But the question is, are these kinds of soaps, body washes, and more, better than their regular counterparts?
We all know hand-washing with soap is an impactful way to maintain health by decreasing the risk of becoming infected with one germ or another. Therefore, using soap with antibacterial compounds added is a no-brainier, right? Wrong! At least according to the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA). In fact, on September 2, 2016, the FDA banned 19 supposedly antibacterial additives commonly found in over-the-counter soaps.
This doesn’t mean that antibacterial soaps are useless at all, they simply make no sense in households. For hospitals or doctors they are an important tool to protect their patients before operations. But here detailed instructions for how long and how the hands have to be washed are provided.
According to the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA), there isn’t enough science to show that over-the-counter (OTC) antibacterial soaps are better at preventing illness than washing with plain soap and water. To date, the benefits of using antibacterial hand soap haven’t been proven. In addition, the wide use of these products over a long time has raised the question of potential negative effects on your health.
Antibacterial soap also tends to be more expensive than regular soap, so you will pay a premium for those ingredients. In some cases, people may mistake antibacterial soap for being more effective or “stronger” against bacteria. As a result, they may not wash their hands as thoroughly or frequently as they should.
the FDA is issuing a final rule under which OTC consumer antiseptic wash products (including liquid, foam, gel hand soaps, bar soaps, and body washes) containing the majority of the antibacterial active ingredients—including triclosan and triclocarban—will no longer be able to be marketed.
Some manufacturers have already started removing these ingredients from their products, ahead of the FDA’s final rule.
Moreover, antibacterial soap products contain chemical ingredients, such as triclosan and triclocarban, which may carry unnecessary risks given that their benefits are unproven.
Triclosan: the good, the bad, and the unknown

Today, it is estimated that 3 of every 4 antibacterial liquid soaps sold to the typical consumer contains triclosan as the active ingredient.
triclosan and triclocarban — was that hundreds of pieces of scientific research revealed they did more harm than good to humans and to the environment.
Mouse studies suggested that these bacteria-killing compounds might affect hormone production and damage the microbiome, and they appeared to contribute to antibiotic resistance. Moreover, cleansers with these chemicals were no better at killing infectious bugs than plain soap and water.
Nonetheless, there are still consumer uses for triclosan that have been proven extremely beneficial, and these are not banned by the FDA. For instance, toothpaste with triclosan has been shown to significantly reduce plaque formation, cavity formation and gingivitis compared to toothpaste without triclosan.
What are the risks of triclosan in toothpaste?
We don’t know yet. More research, especially on long term effects of triclosan, is needed. Not even the FDA has issued a comprehensive ruling on triclosan’s effectiveness and safety. The FDA says it will issue a ruling on triclosan in 2016.
- Antibacterial Soap Contributes to the Rise of Antibiotic-Resistant Bacteria
*Maybe you’ve heard now about how the overuse of antibiotic is causing the rise of antibiotic-resistant “superbugs.” Well, the same can be said of antibacterial products like soap.
As epidemiologist Allison Aiello explains to Scientific American, most antibacterial soaps contain the ingredient triclosan. When the bacteria are exposed to triclosan, they can undergo genetic mutations. These same mutations not only protect them from triclosan (or whatever other antibacterial product you are using), but can make them more difficult to kill with antibiotics.
- Antibacterial Soap May Disrupt Hormones
In animal studies like this one at the Journal of Toxicological Sciences it was found that triclosan altered the hormones in rats, causing an estrogenic effect. The Food and Drug Administration says that animal studies aren’t always indicative of what will happen to humans, but even they recommend reviewing the risks further and say that concerned consumers should use regular soap instead.
- Antibacterial Soap May Impair Muscle Function
The list of risks associated with triclosan go on! A study, reported in Smithsonian Magazine, found that triclosan “hinders human muscle contractions at the cellular level and inhibits normal muscle functioning in both fish and mice.” The researchers weren’t even exposing cells to super-high dosages during the study. They used levels of triclosan similar to what we experience every day.
- Antibacterial Soap Increases Risk of Allergies
There are a lot of theories about why allergies are on the rise and one is that the overly-sanitized environment that we live in is harming the development of our immune system. A study published in the Journal of Allergy and Clinical Immunology furthers this theory. It found that the triclosan commonly found in antibacterial products causes mutations, which may lead to food allergies.
- Antibacterial Soap is Bad for the Environment
When you rinse your hands of antibacterial soap, it doesn’t just disappear down the drain. It gets into our environment and could have disastrous consequences. As Eco Watch reported, the antibacterial chemicals in soap aren’t completely removed by wastewater treatment facilities. The chemicals get transferred into sludge, which is then put on agricultural land and could contaminate surface water.
Why is this so worrisome? Because both triclosan and triclocarban (another common ingredient in antibacterial products) degrade into carcinogens! If these get into the food and water systems, then we could have a massive health problem on our hands. And it seems like they already have gotten into our systems since studies found traces of triclosan in breast milk and also the urine of 75 percent of Americans over the age of five!
- Antibacterial Soap Isn’t Any More Effective Than Regular Soap
The icing on the cake is that antibacterial soap doesn’t do any better of a job at preventing disease than regular soap.
Several studies, like this one at the Journal of Antimicrobial Chemotherapy and this one at the Oxford Journal of Infectious Disease, have looked into the effectiveness of antibacterial soaps. They’ve found that there was “no significant difference” and antimicrobial soap was “no more effective than plain soap” at preventing infectious illness. This shouldn’t be too surprising considering that most diseases are caused by viruses and not bacteria, so antibacterial soap isn’t effective![/vc_column_text][/vc_column][/vc_row]
Presented by: Pharmacist. Ruba noueddin