Soap is made of pin-shaped molecules, each of which has a hydrophilic head — it readily bonds with water — and a hydrophobic tail, which shuns water and prefers to link up with oils and fats.

Shaped like a tadpole, the soap molecule has a round head and long tail; the head is hydrophilic, and the tail is hydrophobic. This quality is one of the reasons soap is slippery.

When we wash our hands with soap, the top part of the molecules in soap bonds with water, while the tail part of the molecule prefers oil and fats, so it begins to pry open the COVID-19 particle.

As a chemical compound, a soap molecule has a water-loving head and a grease- and oil-loving carbon chain tail that surrounds and lifts up dirt molecules, Konkol explained.

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