Two jiu jitsu players sparring on a red and blue mat

Do you need 'warrior' soap for jiu jitsu?

Spend ten minutes on a jiu jitsu forum and you'll be convinced you're rolling about in a soup of staph and fungus, and that only something called Warrior Strength Anti-Everything will save you. I've trained for 7 years and never quite bought it. So I went and read what NHS guidance and the evidence actually say.

What you're rolling in

Staph isn't exotic. MRSA, the antibiotic-resistant kind, lives harmlessly on the skin of around one in thirty people, usually in the nose, armpits and groin, and the risk of infection is greater where there are wounds. Grappling supplies plenty: skin contact, mat burn, cuts.

Ringworm is a fungus, not bacteria. It passes between people through direct skin contact and shared objects such as towels, and the spores can survive for months on skin and household objects. It's usually mild and treated with an antifungal from a pharmacy.

Wash it away, don't fight it

Warrior soaps sell you a fight on your skin. But washing works like a bouncer, not a hitman. Plain soap suspends microorganisms and mechanically removes them when you rinse. Soap doesn't need to kill anything to get it out of the building.

It works, too. In a randomised trial with volunteers on British buses, the underground and in a museum, not washing left bacteria of potential faecal origin on 44% of hand samples, water alone 23%, and plain soap and water 8%. A local authority guide agrees: antibacterial soap offers no advantage over regular soap. The US regulator found manufacturers hadn't shown the most common antibacterial ingredients were more effective than plain soap and water, and one study found triclosan soap no better than plain soap under real-life washing conditions.

Some advice, including from some governing bodies, still says antibacterial is best. I couldn't find the evidence behind it. And since ringworm is a fungus, antibacterial soap isn't aimed at it anyway.

Who cares which you use?

Fair question. For getting germs off, a decent shower gel does the same job as a decent soap. Any type of soap can help remove germs, body wash included. So I won't tell you soap is magic. I'll tell you what else you're choosing: a short ingredient list, no synthetic fragrance, no plastic bottle sliding round your kit bag, and something you'll enjoy using after a hard session. And, in my opinion, you'll smell much better.

The trade-off nobody mentions

Chemical antibacterial washes come with a price. Regulators asked makers to prove the ingredients were safe for daily use and better than plain soap. They didn't. In one lab study, about one in ten bacteria exposed to triclosan survived antibiotics, against one in a million that weren't. In other words, exposure to triclosan made bacteria far more likely to survive antibiotics, in the lab at least.

One small study of an antibacterial soap found shifts in the mix of skin bacteria that persisted for at least two weeks after people stopped using it, although another study of common cleansers found no significant change in the bacterial community. Not proven harmful, not proven useful: a poor trade for a daily wash.

What actually lowers your odds of infection

  • Shower as soon as you can after every session. British Wrestling gives the same advice.
  • Cover cuts and mat burn.
  • Your own towel and kit, washed after every session - no sharing.
  • Check your skin. A ring-shaped rash means a pharmacist. A painful lump that grows fast, or a fever, means a doctor urgently, and staying away from the club.
  • Train somewhere that cleans its mats. If yours doesn't, ask.

None of this is a guarantee. It's how you stack the odds.

It's a team sport

Your habits are your partners' risk and theirs are yours. That isn't about anyone being 'dirty', because people can carry staph without knowing it. The fix is a room where people say 'I've got a rash' and stay home.

What about tea tree oil?

Tea tree oil has real antimicrobial activity in the lab, which is why it turns up in so many 'warrior' soaps. But tested on people, it hasn't beaten ordinary care: in an ICU trial of 391 patients, a 5% tea tree body wash did not significantly reduce new MRSA colonisation compared with a standard baby wash. A soap is on your skin for about a minute. Sports Day, the soap I sell, has tea tree, eucalyptus and lavender essential oils in it. They give it a clean, herbaceous scent that really hits after intense training. I'm not claiming it protects you from anything.

Skin and smell: where our soap and deodorant fit

I sell Sports Day and our deodorants, so weigh what follows.

You're showering more often, on skin the mats have already had a go at. One hand hygiene review notes that irritation from washing increases the ability of pathogenic bacteria to adhere to skin, so I'm fussy about what goes on it. Sports Day is a Castile-style cold process soap made from olive oil, and because it's cold process it keeps its natural glycerine. There's no synthetic detergent and no synthetic fragrance, just eucalyptus, tea tree and lavender. It feels great on my skin and smells like being properly clean. I'm not claiming it kills anything or stops an infection. It doesn't need to - just ejects bacteria from the building.

A wash removes sweat and the bacteria on the surface. But odour bacteria also live in the sweat glands, pores and hair follicles, so washing alone doesn't always stop odour coming back. Deodorant covers that gap. Ours is aluminium-free, so it's a deodorant, not an antiperspirant: you'll still sweat, you just won't smell of it. All our deodorants share the same base, and only the essential oils change. Reviewers say they last ages, and one says it truly lasts the whole day.

You can get both together as the Sports Day Duo, or the Sports Day Essentials Kit for two soaps and a deodorant that lasts about two months. Keep your bar in your bag, keep it dry, and don't lend it.

General information, not medical advice.

Sources

Last reviewed: 24 September 2026. Next review: March 2027.

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