It's been a long time since I have been fascinated by a popular science book and took the time to review it afterwards. But this one, listed in the top ten science books of 2020 by Smithsonian Magazine, is something I felt I needed to advertise because it's one of those books that impacts your life and your habits.
Until the Covid-19 outbreak, we rarely thought long about soap. Like many people, I developed a new appreciation for soap since then and imagined vicious destruction on a micro level every time I washed my hands. Everyday since Covid-19, we see ads on tv for products promising not to get rid of the virus, but get rid of all microbes and bacteria. It's a strange era to read a book by a doctor who is quite critical of the soap industry, one that begins with the sentence, "I stopped taking a shower five years ago."
For those who are in shock and want to give up reading what follows, I want to make it clear right away that the preventive medicine physician James Hamblin, the author of Clean: The New Science of Skin, still advocates regular hand washing, which has undeniably been a world-changing innovation in public health and crucial importance at this point in history. But he questions the value of all that scrubbing and soaping—not to mention moisturizing, deodorizing and applying serums—to which we subject the largest organ of our bodies, as well as the companies that spend a lot of money to get us convince us that we have to do that to stay clean.
In his book, he explores the history behind the human obsession with cleanliness and the colossal industry driving our current desire to scrub every inch of our bodies. Trillions of microbes cover our skin, creating a flourishing microbiome of good bacteria, and every time we lather up, we kill those little helpers en masse. These massive die-offs create room for harmful bacteria to set up camp, which triggers our bodies’ immune response in the form of nasty-looking, undesirable inflammation or irritation.
Never a dull moment with this book, which is both scientifically accurate as fun and compelling. As we learn where the term soap opera comes from, we also discover why the US Food and Drug Administration is powerless against a multi-billion dollar industry that taps into fear through advertising and non-scientific claims. As a reader you are really left stunned after Hamblin lets a lot of people pass in the book — including dermatologists, microbiologists, allergists, immunologists, aestheticians, Amish people, venture capitalists and even some scam artists.
A deeply-researched read - the references are a big chunk of the 280 pages of the book - that deserves a big audience.
