Washing with soap is damaging your skin, says doctor - what to do instead

Soap [Photo: Shutterstock]

Using soap to wash in the shower is a trivial task that none of us has ever thought anything of. But it turns out that it has actually been damaging our skin all this time. According to Dr James Hamblin, using soap in the shower can confuse our body's natural responses to dirt, reported Daily Star.

In his book, Clean: The New Science of Skin, which was released this week, the author said cleaning agents can affect the balance of natural microbiomes. He writes: "While we have long thought about our skin as a barrier to separate us from the outside world, growing knowledge about the microbiome suggests that skin is instead a dynamic interface with our environment."