Efficacy
Washing with soap and water is much less effective than hygienic hand disinfection ( 1-3). Even washing for several minutes reduces the skin's resident flora hardly at all (Table 2 gif ppt). Washing reduces the transient flora (contaminating flora) by only 2 to 3 log10 levels. The same is true for bacterial spores ( 6). Given the frequently short duration of washing, the efficacy of antimicrobial soaps hardly exceeds that of ordinary soaps ( 6), so that normal soaps are generally perfectly adequate for everyday clinical use.