An Unusual Subject for Miss Edith: Personal Hygiene -- One Woman's Rant Against Liquid Soap

I realize that this isn't the sort of thing I normally write about -- Miss Edith is a clean woman if not a good one, which means that while I do think about domestic and personal hygiene, I'm not prone to writing about it or even pontificating about it. Lord knows there are a lot of blogs out there that do just that -- and some of them are, actually, entertaining, informative, etc. etc., and that's just lovely.

But recently Miss Edith read an article -- I think it was in the New York Times, but I can't honestly remember; I would link to it if I could remember -- which was about handwashing. The article was inspired by the recent swine flu epidemic, and was really a sort of public service announcement reminding folks that handwashing is the best way to prevent getting sick.

Miss Edith has no problem with that.

The article reminded the reader that a person should always wash his or her hands after using the bathroom, and made the point that at the very least, even if one fancies oneself scrupulously clean, touching the latches on public bathroom stalls would be in and of itself reason to wash one's hands after using the bathroom. "How often," the article's author asked, if I remember correctly, "How often do you think someone washes those latches?"

Which is a fine point, and I take it, etc. etc.

But then, the author of the article said something that really stuck in my craw, which I've been pondering ever since. The article urged us all to use liquid soap from a pump rather than bar soap, because bar soap is, I guess, less hygienic in and of itself beacuse bacteria can, they say, linger on the soap.

This irked me.

Because here's the thing: you have to touch the soap pump in order to use liquid soap -- and things splash on those liquid soap containers, and, basically, the amount of crud that accumulates on liquid soap containers can be enough to make me wonder why anyone thinks they're actually neater or superior to bar soap. If you ask me, a liquid soap pump is just one more thing in the bathroom that needs to be washed. If no one's cleaning the bathroom latches or doorknobs, seriously, how many people do you think are cleaning the liquid soap dispenser?

(For the record: I have a liquid soap dispenser at my kitchen sink, and I do wash it pretty regularly; basically, every time I handle raw meat or poultry, I have to touch it to wash my hands, and then, yes, I wash the dispenser. It's annoying.)

So in the end, doesn't it make more sense to use bar soap, which doesn't have to be washed, because it is soap? Maybe in a public restroom a liquid soap dispenser makes more sense. But at home, I think I will make sure that all the sinks just have a simple bar of soap next to them. Screw liquid soap. Just screw it. A bar of soap, regularly used, has to be just as good, just as safe, if not better and safer (and let's not even get into the whole environmentally sound packaging mishegas) than an overpriced plastic bottle with a cruddy schmutzy pump dispenser on its top.