Patent Application
20070241121
The single and dry soap strips are used in the sanitary field of cleansing hands and other body parts.
Hand washing saves lives; no question about it. It has been urged to use diluted chlorine to wash hands. There are many better ways and products for hand washing than diluted chlorine. Such products are found in squeeze bottles containing liquid soap, so-called “Handy Wipes” which come in sealed packages and are wet at all times, and, of course, bars of soap. Daily activities include shaking hands, brushing cheeks with “air kisses” and light hugs which are all opportunities to spread infections. Human touch is so important for connecting but one has to be careful to hand wash before eating or touching one's face or mouth.
Frequent hand washing with soap for about twenty seconds is effective. If sinks are not available, then instant hand sanitizers work well and may be more convenient in many situations. The problem remains that many public rest rooms necessitate touching potentially dirty surfaces, including bacteria and viruses, as on faucet handles, paper towel dispensers and doors, after hands have been washed. Just being careful, without being obsessive, can avoid many of those problems. Modern state-of-the-art rest rooms have electric sensors and physical layouts that facilitate avoidance of post hand washing contact.
The inventive placing of soap into the hands of a user consists of a water soluble substrate in the form of a dry strip having a soap substance or emulsion embedded therein. The water soluble substrate will immediately disintegrate when contacted by water, such as in a hand washing procedure, leaving the soap substrate or emulsion in the hand of the user ready to do its proposed action and that is to wash the hands of a person.
Single application soaps will be a thin film made from any water soluble carrier. When rubbed with water or wet hands the film will turn to soap suds. Single applications assure no waste like the remaining soaps remaining in soap pump bottles that will not come out, even when it is empty. The inventive containers will be biodegradable, while a multiple of plastic soap bottles may not be recycled ending up in landfills.
It is important that the water soluble substrate be biodegradable and be user friendly at the same time in that it is non-irritant to the skin of the user. The soluble substrates, among others are: Carrageenan, Locust Bean Gum, Pullulan and Xanthan Gum which will be described in more detail below.
As mentioned above, the water soluble substrate should be user friendly to the skin and should be readily dissolvable.
Carrageenan:
The name “Carrageenan” is a collective term for polysaccarides prepared by alkaline extraction (a modification) from red seaweed (Rhodophycae), mostly a genus of Chondrus, Eucheuma or Giga Iridaea. Different seaweeds produce different carrageenans.
Locust Bean Gum:
Locust Bean Gum (also called Carob Bean Gum and Carubin) is extracted from the seed (kernels) of a carob tree (Ceratonia siliqua). It forms a food reserve for the seeds and helps to retain water under arid conditions.
Pullulen:
Pullulan is a neutral glucan (like Amylose, Dextran or Cellulose), with a chemical struture somewhat depending on a carbon source, producing microorganisms (different strains of Aureobasidium pullulans), under fermentation conditions.
Zanthan Gum:
Zantham gum is a microbial dessiccation-resistant polymer prepared commercially by a submerged fermentation from Xanthomonas campestries. It is naturally produced to stick to the beams of the cabbage-like plants.
Gelatin:
Gelatin is obtained by boiling the skin, tendons and ligaments of animals. The word Gelatin is derived from the Latin “gelatus”, meaning stiff or frozen. It has no smell or taste of its own but will adapt to whatever is added to it.
