5 Reasons why I DON'T wash my hands

And neither should you

What can you do to stay healthy during the cold and flu season?

According to propaganda from primary schools, public bathrooms, and “health” departments, you should wash your hands with anti-bacterial soap as frequently as possible.

gloves are an option too, funny they never recommend ones that look good…

And yet, here we are— millions of gallons of water and toxic chemicals (aka “soap”) flushed down the drain every year, and people are still getting sick, and their hands are dry and irritated.

Useless.

This is because handwashing propaganda ignores two very fundamental aspects of skin health. These are:

1. Your skin absorbs everything it touches. Even worse, toxins absorbed through the skin are processed much less rigorously than those which are eaten, because the digestive system is very good at neutralizing them.

2. Your skin maintains a healthy environment of bacteria and oil to protect it. Removing this environment makes skin irritated and unhealthy.

With that in mind, let’s look at how your skin is punished during the conventional hand-washing process, and why it’s a good idea to avoid it to the greatest extent possible.

The Problems with Handwashing

1. Anti-bacterial agents

Standard hand soaps include potent anti-microbial chemicals designed to kill bacteria, viruses, yeast, etc.

Remember how the skin has its own bacterial ecosystem, just like the gut? And just like in your gut, the strength of your skin bacteria is the strength of your skin’s immune system.

Anti-microbials kill this very important part of the immune system.

Even worse, anti-microbials applied to the skin can disrupt the gut microbiome, causing digestive stress and a weakened internal immune system.

Okay, so let’s remove the antibiotics from our soap. Would it be fine then?

2. Hormone disrupting fragrances

Not yet. The vast majority of commercial soaps, even ones that are branded as “natural” or “sustainable” like Myer’s Clean Day or Method, are full of artificial fragrances.

Among familiar names such as “forever chemicals”, these fragrances are also considered “slow poisons”, since exposure occurs in small doses and toxic effects accumulate over time.

It’s not as if you just wash once and then rinse them off. Just smell your hands 5 minutes after washing with chemical soap. Guess what? The smell is still there, slowly poisoning you for the rest of the day.

While the harmful effects are endless, perhaps of most concern to this audience is their impact on male and female fertility by modifying the expression of sex hormones.

Alright, fragrances are out. That should surely leave us with healthy soap, right?

3. Artificial chemicals

Nope. Fragrances are just the petroleum-derived toxins that you can smell.

What about the chemicals in fragrance-free soap? Let’s take a look:

Toxic chemicals like sodium laurel sulfate and sodium benzoate feature front and center. Again, they don’t rinse off in the sink— they stay on your skin to slowly absorb for hours.

Alright, so chemical soap is bad. Surely a pure “natural” soap would be fine, right?

Pure soap does exist (we’ll get into that later), but that ignores the other main ingredient in handwashing— water.

4. Toxic tap water

If you’re reading this, I don’t need to tell you about the dangers of tap water. Hopefully, you are drinking spring water or reverse osmosis remineralized water like a proper citizen of Tan Land.

With any luck, you also filter your shower water.

showering here should do the trick too…

But it’s unlikely that you have a whole-house filter, especially if you live in a city apartment where water quality is the worst.

And thus, the water you wash your hands with is full of chlorine, fluoride, heavy metals, and God knows what else.

Any exposure to such water is a problem, regardless of soap quality.

That being said, are you safe if your water is clean? Still not, unfortunately…

5. Removes natural oils

Each of the prior problems can be corrected if you put some thought into your handwashing practice.

But by definition, natural handwashing still strips your hands of its natural oils.

Do your hands get dry and chapped in the winter? If so, then this is why.

chapped hands are not a good look for anyone...

When it’s cold, your skin produces even less oil than normal. So stripping your hands (and body, for that matter) of natural oils should be done as infrequently as possible.

What to do instead

So yes, the conventional handwashing process is destructive to your health.

That being said, obviously your hands get dirty, and you’ll need to clean them.

Here’s what you can do instead of the conventional chemical bath:

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I quit my job to help make the world a healthier place. Please consider becoming a paid subscriber of Tan Land to support my work and to gain access to my full archive of articles designed to help you live a healthier, more enjoyable life.

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