What's the Deal With Detergent?

I could see soap not being a very hospitable surface for microbes. Most of the stuff that you have in your bathroom right now that you consider soap are actually detergents. The only way for something to qualify as a soap is for it to have gone through saponification station. If you don't start with fats and alkalines and they don't undergo saponification, you have something that does the same thing.