De-Fishing Soap

The De-Fishing Soap : Is it good for TMAU sufferers?

There are many skin products in the market that persons with odor need to cipher through to determine what will work and not work to help reduce fish odor produced by a deficiency in the FMO3 enzyme. After running across this video on De-Fishing Soap, I decided to research a little more into it. I think it’s important that sufferers become informed consumers.

After reading the ingredients of this soap, I see that it contains glycerin. It so happens that glycol concentrate (Propylene Glycol) has a pH of 9.5, as indicated in a chart in raypak.com . In another site, peacefulscents.com, I found these beautiful soaps that also contain glycerin which they claim has a very high pH of 8 to 9.

Soaps with such high pH seem to go against the research posted in this blog, one of which basically quotes a Trimethylaminuria paper written for the NIH Gene Reviews, sited by Drs. Phillips/Shephard in London,

Use of acid soaps and body lotions. Trimethylamine is a strong base (pKa 9.8). Thus, at pH 6.0, less than 0.02% of trimethylamine exists as the volatile free base. The use of soaps and body lotions with a pH close to that of normal skin (pH 5.5-6.5) helps retain secreted trimethylamine in a less volatile salt form that can be removed by washing.

This paper recommends the use of acid soaps and body lotions to reduce the very alkaline pH of TMA. Another paper by the University of Washington, Seattle, funded by the National Institutes of Health, also recommends the use of acid soaps and body lotions.

Therefore it appears that the De-Fishing Soap works well only for fishermen whose source of fish odor is an external source. It may be that the star anise essential oil and the Australian tea tree essential oil could work well with the glycerin to remove the TMA smell of the fish. However, the TMAU sufferer’s fish odor comes from an internal source - the TMA flowing through the blood and coming out of the skin through perspiration. Therefore, a person with TMAU have different needs, which are primarily to lower the skin's pH.

These are the ingredients of this soap:

De-Fishing Soap contains purified water, glycerin, sodium stearate, sorbitol, propylene glycol, Sodium laureth sulphate, stearic acid, lauric acid, sodium chloride, star anise essential oil, Australian tea tree essential oil, and FD&C blue dye #1

http://www.defishingsoap.com/