"Soap"

Does anyone know is the lather or suds necessary when laundering face masks? I'll need to wash mine by hand and the only detergent I can use doesn't make suds.

Washing the masks with hand soap isn't an option. My fragrance free one that I can use leaves a scent residue that I would react to breathing through the mask.

Thank you for any information you can share about this. :)
 
Heat can kill viruses, so washing over 60C should do it, but if you are hand washing, be careful not to burn your hands. I think I would either put the mask in a container and pour boiling water on it and leave it to soak in it, or if I had access to an iron I would iron it.
 
Jonathan Edwards said:
Real soap is actually different from most synthetic detergents like washing up liquid in that the combination of sodium ions and weak stearate/oleate/palmitate ions generates a very alkaline environment in biological terms. Not as alkaline as caustic soda but enough to be seriously bactericidal. Ordinary soap has been used for scrubbing for surgery for years and has powers significantly beyond just detergent.

However, for viruses the pH factor may be less critical - although it may well contribute to denaturing proteins.

Another thing that strikes me about bar soap is that to get a lather you need to produce a thick emulsion that forms a layer over the hands. With washing up liquid once it is fully mixed with water the result is too think to stick to you - unless of course you put the washing up liquid on your hands before any water and coat hands completely before wetting. You can have a lot of lather with non-soap detergents maybe without getting surface coverage for long enough. Surgical scrub solutions were always goo-forming films.
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So does that mean that a strong - say 1:10 solution of washing up liquid may not kill coronavirus? My carer believes it will - because a doctor on tv said that any kind of soap eg washing up liquid would kill it. So for example, when she comes in, she goes straight to the kitchen tap & washes her hands, & then she washes the pots, & i worry that if she doesn't thoroughly disinfect the tap she touched on the way in, or if she splashed the draining board/taps or into the bowl while washing then she will just be re-contaminating her hands when she runs the washing up water..... & then all my dishes.
But if she's putting her hands in a bowl full of hot soapy water & she sloshes plenty around - wiping the tap etc will that be enough to feel relaxed about things? But then she uses the dish cloth to wipe my kitchen surfaces etc, and i worry about touching the plates after they've been in that solution- because what if it didn't kill it... but just diluted it into the washing up water & therefore just spread it around instead.
I guess what it would be good for us all to know is whether washing up liquid, at usual usage strength - ie not neat, will kill it or not? I wish we had proper science on this, or that someone could refer me to it if it's there.

I also saw this & wondered whether just because it kills norovirus etc it will kill corona?
https://www.boots.com/nemesis-eh2o-anti-viral-spray-750ml-10281125

ETA when I say she wipes my surfaces I don't mean due to possible contamination - that she'd do with bleach - I mean just generally wiping the surfaces as part of general kitchen clean up in the way one normally would after I've been using it for prep earlier.
 
@JemPD

Here is a good article on how soap disrupts the neatly-ordered shell around the virus, dissolving it in the running water and killing the virus.

"Because the soap molecules are so similar to the ones making up the outer layer of the virus, the molecules in the lipid bilayer are as strongly attracted to soap molecules as they are to each other".
 
Thanks. I always understood the rubbing & rinsing under running water. I would just love to know what happens to the virus when immersed in strong-ish solution of washing up liquid - without rubbing or rinsing.

But it sounds quite promising so that's good.
 
My understanding is that 2 things happen.

The outer lipid containing layer is attracted to the water,and therefore breaks up in the presence of water and detergent, leaving the virus without any protection - this is a massive over simplification, and completely wrong, as most people tend to be multicellular life forms (i.e. mostly having more than one mobile phone), and viruses are possibly not even life forms let alone multicellular, but think of how nonviable you would be, and how difficult it could be to work, or even reproduce, if all your cells lost their cell walls.

But the principle, and effect, according to my understanding, are similar.

Like dipping an egg in strong acid, causing the shell to breakup/dissolve - any resulting chickens aren't going to be.

Water both makes the break up of the lipid layer possible, and if moving washes away the resulting chaos.

My virology fu is somewhat weak but my understanding is that the 'keys' that the virus needs to enter cells are contained in/on the lipid layer, so even if the virus was to survive the removal it would be unable to enter any cells.

I, personally, don't think the rubbing will make that much difference, it serves to ensure distribution of the detergent, and it's probably the easiest and most efficient way of doing so. Great force or intensity is probably not needed, scrubbing is not needed, provided your nails are short, it's just something to do while you're waiting out the 20 seconds.

Helps the water get to the detergent/lipid mix at the end so it can be washed away.
 
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So, I went to buy some liquid soap in a dispenser this week, only to find that "liquid soap" barely seems to exist any more, and that it's all "handwash". I assumed that handwashes all contained soap, but it turned out that the one I bought (Simple) has no soap in it! So I'm wondering how many of these handwashes are actually effective against the virus.
 
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