Foam Soap vs Liquid Soap. What to choose?
| On Sep12,2021
Foam soaps may be a bit more fun to dispense than liquids, but that doesn’t mean they kill germs better. In fact, despite their increased usage in hospitals, schools, and other public buildings, they may actually be inferior to the old liquid standby, according to a study in the American Journal of Infection Control.
For the experiment, five people washed their hands for six seconds using one pump of liquid detergent-based soap before drying them on paper towels for four seconds, and another five used foam soap. The concentration of germs on the hands afterward were quantified on a 1-4 scale.
After using foam soap, the amount of bacteria went from a 3.6 to a 2.6 on an average, which wasn’t statistically significant. The liquid soap, on the other hand, led to a dramatic decline of 3.8 to 1.2. Two follow-up studies produced the same findings.
It’s shows that foam soap is less effective as compared to liquid soap simply because with all those bubbles, there’s just less soap in each dollop of the product. The data suggest that the use of foam soaps for handwashing may give a false sense of hand decontamination and potentially lead to the spread of resistant bacteria.
