You’re f? This reminds me of the “only black people use washcloths” thread inspired by the Dave Chapelle sketch.
I’d throw the soap out, in that scenario. I’d never get to that point though, because I can’t recall ever having rubbed a bar of soap directly onto something dirty.
But what about the washcloth or hand or loofah that touched the dirt? Do you throw it out before it touches the soap? How do you know whatever you used is completely poop free by the time you reach for more soap?
My washcloths and scrubbers go through a round in the washing machine with bleach before they get used again. If they were particularly disgusting, I’d just toss it. They’re cheap. I can’t even recall the last time I used bar soap though* so this is mostly hypothetical for me.
They don’t need to be sterile, but I’d rather minimize the amount of live, harmful bacteria (or the toxins they’ve produced) that gets ground into my skin.
I squirt some face wash on my washcloth and then hop in the shower. I wash my face first. I use the bar soap in the tub to lather up other bits, but my face seems to dry up too much if I use bar soap on it. This might be because I wash my face a couple of times a day. On the other end, I use wet wipes whenever the occasion requires, as well as dry toilet tissue.
I work at a preschool, and my first impulse is to say: this is why we use pumps of liquid handwash. The logical part of my brain says 2, because the germs can’t live on the soap itself, but my gut instinct says it’s going to take 4. Mind you, I wouldn’t put a bar of soap directly on my face in any event - might as well just have all the moisture sucked out of my skin by vacuum pump - but to be clean enough to lather up a washcloth or my hands and then use the lather to wash my face, it would be 4.
Actually, I’m pretty sure you can. Lots of people carry MRSA without it becoming a dangerous infection (I think in the nasal passages).
So if you’re a carrier and you transfer the bacteria into an open wound, particularly one where the circulation is poor, you can be in serious trouble.
In my house it was around the time that my girlfriend decided to somehow manage to soak my bar of Irish Spring the entire time she was in the shower turning it into a cold ball of mush by the time I took a shower.
Imagination not necessary, I may be OCD, but I’m not shy.
But seriously, I don’t think I’m OCD and I am actually quite shy.
I wash my face with ‘face wash’ because I have some basic skin problems.
If there is something germy to clean up, I often use water/bleach in a spray bottle and paper towels so I can throw them away. I have even been known to throw away rags and wash cloths because they were used to, for example, clean up dog diarrhea. (FWIW, the wash cloths were on the floor when the dog lost her composure.)
The thing I tend to get weird about is handling raw chicken. I used to get whole chickens and cut them up myself to save a little money. It started to get a little expensive though since I pretty much had to move afterward or spend a week sanitizing.
Okay, not using soap on your face because of skin problems is perfectly understandable. I guess at least some of you people aren’t quite as weird as I thought.
I have nothing to contribute. I merely wanted to add that the above phrase made me snort coffee out my nose. Fortunately, it did not land on anything that needed to be washed.
Depending on how extravagant i was feeling, I might just throw it out and open a new bar. Otherwise, I suppose I’d go for the third “until it smells only of soap” option. (Actually, I am slightly squicked by the idea that anyone would go for the first two options, given what the third one implies. Call me crazy and germphobic, but I’d really prefer not to wash my face with anything that smells of poop.)