Hand washing is important in preventing the spread of germs and also to keep hands free of dirt. There are many different types of hand soaps available today; from commercial powdered hand soap to scented guest soap. You can also find bar and liquid varieties as well as soaps made for different skin types.
Aloe is a common ingredient in moisturizing soaps as are shea and cocoa butters. Water can dry out skin, so hand soap enriched with a moisturizer may help keep skin from drying out too much due to frequent hand washing. Goat milk and olive oil are other moisturizers found in some types of hand soap.
Heavy duty commercial soaps often contain pumice as it is an abrasive and can usually remove a lot of dirt from the hands. Other types of abrasives found in hand soaps are natural seeds such as crushed apricot seeds. Some natural soap uses vegetable pulp, seeds and even the skin such as with cucumber hand soap.
The fragrances of hand soap cover a wide range of scents such as citrus, peppermint, lavender, coconut, berry and many more. The soap may be tinted a color associated with the scent such as orange for oranges and blue for blueberries and some soaps have natural coloring only. A great tip for quest soap is to match it to your bathroom color scheme for a pulled-together look. You don't have to use traditional small guest soaps in a dish, but you can use a clear plastic soap dispenser filled with liquid soap in a color to coordinate with your bathroom if you want.
Antibacterial is yet another type of hand soap, but many studies have shown that this type of soap kills not just harmful germs but helpful ones too. Good bacteria live on our skin and help to kill bad bacteria that can cause disease. If we constantly use antibacterial hand soaps we run the risk of killing off the good bacteria, so we should take care not to overuse this kind of hand soap.