Okay, this is a question for the chemical, medical and similar doper experts (I only had minor Chemistry in High School, where we only covered the basics).
The above statement - hard to dishes, soft to skin - was the advertising slogan of a certain dishwasher brand some years ago. More and more companies are claiming that their dishwashing soap no longer strips the skin of all oil, but only the dishes.
Now, I don’t believe any ad slogan to be literally true. I wonder however how anythign of that kind would be possible at all.
Here’s what I know: The tricky part abotu dishwashing is the fatty stuff. Everything else can be removed with water, but because lipids are hydrophobic, they repel water and thus need an agent with two ends, a lipidphile end and a hyrdophile end, which allows the fat to be washed away.
Our skin has a natural fat barrier.
Now, how could an agent be manufactured that distinguishes between fats from food and fat on your skin? Are the two types so very different? But a lot of fat on the normal plate is from animals, so presumably similar to our skin fat.
Now, I know that dishwashing soaps today do affect the skin less than 15 years ago. Did they compromise ont the cleaning part? Did they add a time-delayed skin oil? Does anybody have any insight on how thsis might work?
Disclaimer: I’m not working in the industry, I don’t want secret formulas, just general answers.