Antibacterial Activity Test of Liquid Bath Soap from Aloe vera Mucus

Abstract

Maintaining body cleanliness is a process for maintaining body cleanliness and health. One way to maintain personal hygiene is by bathing regularly using soap. Soap is a cleaning agent that is commonly used to clean oneself from various dirt, bacteria, and other contaminants. The use of soap has expanded, namely in the cosmetics sector, because soap can function to maintain moisture, softness, and healthy skin. As people's tastes and demands vary, we can now find various forms of soap preparations, such as solid soap, liquid soap, gel, paper soap, and transparent soap. The use of liquid bath soap is increasingly popular because it is easy to use and efficient at cleaning impurities from the skin. Escherichia coli bacteria are gram-negative bacteria that can cause diarrhea due to the entry of E. coli bacteria into the body through hands contaminated with these bacteria, so it is recommended to wash your hands before eating and after handling dirty objects. Liquid bath soap is a skin cleansing preparation that protects the skin from dangerous bacteria because it has a special formula. One alternative raw material for killing bacteria in bath soap preparations is aloe vera, which is more often called Aloe Vera (Aloe barbadensis Miller). This research aims to provide information on the use of aloe vera plant mucus as liquid bath soap and to create a special formula for liquid bath soap containing aloe vera mucus, to find out the antibacterial activity of liquid bath soap against Escherichia coli bacteria. The research method stages included organoleptic observations, total plate numbers, and antibacterial preparation tests. The antibacterial activity test for liquid bath soap was carried out using the agar diffusion method (Kirby Bauer test) using paper discs with a diameter of 5 mm by calculating the diameter of the clear zone against E.coli bacteria. The average diameter of the clear zone was 15.86 mm in the experiment with formula 1 preparation samples (10%), and the average diameter of the clear zone was 19.4 mm in the experiment with formula 2 preparation samples (15%). Based on the average clear zone, the higher the concentration of the liquid bath soap preparation, the higher the clear zone formed, and vice versa. So it can be concluded that aloe vera liquid bath soap meets the requirements as an antibacterial soap