For the Love of Soap

I remember when my bar of soap in the shower was fresh and large and satisfying. I like the way a new bar of soap feels in my hand, all heavy and bursting with potential. It makes you want to shout to the world, “I HAVE PLENTY OF SOAP!” When soap is abundant, I’ll wash parts of my body that aren’t even dirty, just because I can.

Ah, those were the days.

About a week ago, that bar of soap had shrunken to the size of a small dog’s ear. It was still functional, but no longer the joy it had been. I can afford to replace soap before it surrenders its last bubble, but that would be wasteful. So I snugged the dog ear into the palm of my hand and lathered up. The tiny soap got me clean, but I couldn’t enjoy it.

Ah, those were the days.

More recently, I was in the shower, all wetted down, and reached for what I figured would be, by then, a Chiclet-sized bar of soap, only to find no soap at all. I wiped the fog off the glass shower wall and squinted to the bathtub area. There it was. My wife had moved it. Damn her love of baths! Now I had a tough decision.

1. Abort shower, dry off, fetch Chiclet, fetch dry towel, restart the process.
2. Walk wet across the bathroom wet, fetch Chiclet. Slip on the wet floor and die.
3. Use shampoo on my entire body and tell myself it’s “the same as soap”

I shampooed my body. It’s the same as soap, right?

Ah, those were the days.

I soon learned that my wife had moved the Chiclet because we had no other bars of soap in the house. I probably should have made myself a note right then and there to add it to the shopping list. Soon, the soap was the size of a Tic Tac. Then a grain of rice. Then. . . I dropped it.

I don’t know if you have ever tried to pick up a tiny piece of soap after it hits the shower floor. It’s difficult, even if you aren’t in prison. It suctions itself to the tile floor and starts to melt almost immediately. I tried to pry up some of its little soap body, but I was too late. My soap had failed me, or perhaps I had failed it. In the end, I was wet, and dirty, and still a soap waster.

If you have not tried to wash your entire body with the soap you have under one fingernail, it’s harder than you think. Once again, I reached for the shampoo. That was empty too. I considered the other sources of soap in the house. There was the dishwasher soap, but that seemed like it might hurt for some reason that wasn’t entirely clear to me.

We had liquid hand soap at all the sinks, but I couldn’t see myself toweling off and bringing a nice soap dispenser in the shower. And given my soap-dropping propensities, the dispenser would either break my foot or burst into sharp pieces and unleash a Walt Disneyesque tsunami of bubbles that would fill the shower and eventually the entire house.

I ended up taking a water-only shower, but only because I didn’t think of the toothpaste until I wrote this.

Comments

[p]

I digress.. but had to submit this after somebody submitted a joke on a nun and soap:

whats the difference between a nun in a church and a nun in a bath:

1. Soul full of hopes
2. Holes full of soap

[ShirtBloke]

Didn't someboby used to make floating soap for use in the bath? It had a wooden core that enabled the floating, plus it meant that you never ended up with that too-thin sliver that you complain about. Whatever happened to it?

[Laminate]

You don't have to be wasteful not to have to deal with the last little 'dog's ear' of soap. Get it wet, get the new bar wet. Press old soap scrap into new bar.

[Laminate Flooring]

You don't have to be wasteful not to have to deal with the last little 'dog's ear' of soap. Get it wet, get the new bar wet. Press old soap scrap into new bar.

[Borjan]

He-he! All I can say to you now is: "You dirty bastard!" ;-)

BTW, it's funny how mind works - when you mentioned soap, I thought of what my friend said when we were discussing TV-soaps. After I admited my love for the "Desperate Housewives" and "Lost", he said in a patronizing tone: "Well, everybody's got their own soap."

So, what is your:

a) favourite TV-soap of all time?
b) current favourite TV-soap?
c) favourite brand of real soap?

Can you be like "normal" people for a minute and answer these life-defining questions?

[jmc]

hma said, "You poor Americans, so scared of wet floors even in your bathrooms. In the civilized world we have centuries old tradition to build bathroom floors using materials that are not slippery even when wet."

Just for the edification of my fellow Americans, he means they carpet their bathrooms. At least in England they do.

[Alex]

Hi there Scott - your post reminded me of an old story I read a while ago, and I thought you and everyone else might enjoy being reminded of it too :-)

http://www.answersthatwork.com/Download_Area/Fun_Page/a_soap_story.txt

[Sporniket]

Well, I took the habit to use the shampoo to clean my body, just because I'm lazy (I wash my hair then continue down).
If you don't want to waste the remaining soap, store it in a dry and clean plastic box and start using a fresh soap when the old one has become unenjoyable. After collecting a few of them, have them melt together in a kind of "bain marie" and mold them to have a "not so fresh but at least enjoyable" soap bar. You might consider putting essential oil of a plant so that when using it, a nice perfume fill the bathroom. (well I have not tested this way, but I know it is possible to do, because I found an howto about making one's own shaving soap from ordinary soap)

[Oliver]

It is mine and I will wash it as fast as I like...

Ooh, the good times.

[skritch]

Thanks, that made me laugh until soap came out me nose!

What we do in our house is stick the chiclet on the top of the next new bar of soap. That way it's no longer too small to handle and you don't get any wastage.

[Xena]

Spending all day in the shower with a bar of soap is being obsessive.

[Sameer]

Our kids got these animal shaped soap bars - and after a few days i just cannot convince my daughter that what she thinks is a lion used to be an elephant.

[pc]

if you don't mind using "shower gel" or liquid body soap or whatever it's called, you could mount a dispenser in your shower and keep an economy-sized refill bottle somewhere in the bathroom. that way you won't be able to drop it, and there's always a reserve in case you need it.

[Are Riksaasen]

I have a one-gallon soap dispenser in my shower. It has lasted two years so far. Just wanted to share.

[Kevin Kunreuther]

Laughing, laughing, laughing.

I collect all the tiny slivers of soap and then mush them together to create a huge Union of Soviet Soapy Republics. Sometimes, tho, the union disintegrates and acts more like the Russian Federation with breakaway republics. There I'll be, washing The Netherlands, then, geesh, sfffft, there goes Dagestan, spiraling down the drain. If I'm not careful I may slip on Komi and, whoops, fall and break my Yakutia.

[Karen!!]

All that traveling you do and you don't take the extra hotel soap home with you? You would never run out. It comes in handy!

[Bob]

I have 2 Ideas ...

Someone should make a shower enclosure (all 4 walls ... except for the floor) completely out of soap. The enclosure walls will have depth sensors plastered in a matrix grid all over it so that if any part of the wall is worn down to a preset value, it automatically signals the "enclosure replace people" to come to your house and replace it.

This will provide you with ample amount of large soapy surfaces to rub yourself with while never running out!

Or ... someone should make a MEGA SOUP DISPENSER unit. So when you install it you can load the baby up with at least 50,000 pieces of soap in an environmentally controlled box. Since soap never spoil, this bulk buy system will work ... cost will be high but it's worth it! When you run out of "working size" soap, just press a button and presto! a new bar of soap appears. The dispenser unit will have a sensor that automatically alerts the MEGA SOUP DISPENSER REFILL COMPANY to come and refill the unit when your supply falls below 1,000 pieces of soap.

Now that I thought about it ... I've sent my ideas to the patent office. HAHAHAHA! try stealing my ideas you cheap ****** .... HAHAHAHAHAHA!

[sak_gatane]

Wow,
you missed several things.
1: laundry soap,
2: floor disinfectant,
3: WD40.

BTW, when one soap bar becomes small enough that one can not get a firm grip on it, what I do is to take a new bar, hold it next to the existing bar, wrap them in a piece of cloth and squeeze them into one.

Thus I always have a soap bar big enough to make me feel like a world conqueror, and at the same time I waste no soap.
SakG.

[Tim Hall]

When the soap gets very small I take a new bar and mash the old bar onto the new one with a layer of thick foam between: voila, the little one sticks to the big one like mold on a rock and I can continue my shower experience with plenty of soap and the added satisfaction of that not even a nanogram of the old soap will be wasted.

Does this make my children look at me like I've bumped my head? Yes. Does it irritate the wife, who somehow believes that the sliver should go out by the bathroom sink, kind of like the soap retirement home? Yes it does.

I can live with all that. I'm doing my part for the environment by completely using the soap, thus allowing me to use the SUV as much as I want.

[Sassy Suds]

Ugh. Don't ever use that nasty "body wash" stuff. It's made of detergent based petrochemicals and you absorb it through your skin. The "soap" in the grocery store isn't really soap, either. Unless it says soap on the label, it isn't really soap. Most of them have the glycerin squeezed out, then the company sells it back to you in the form of lotion.

I can't relate to ever running out of soap because there are at least 15 different kinds in the shower at any one time. Yep, you guessed it. I make soap for a living.

Scott, you're preaching to the choir about the joys of soap. Send me your agent's address and I'll send you the really good stuff. It's the soap equivalent of buying a bag of dusty Chips Ahoy, or having someone bake you a warm, fresh batch of chocolate chip cookies from scratch.

[jani]

According to one study, a bar of soap is the most 'dirtiest' (i.e. has the most potentially harmful bacteria in it) artifact in your home.

Another study said blow-drying your hands after washing them won't get rid of nearly as much of the little bugs as using a towel.

Combine these two and you get the third story, in which all the surfaces of a typical office building were tested for bacteria. What I learned from that is to wash my office coffee cup regularly, unless I want my java with a splash of E. coli.

[Sathyanarayan]

Ever tried washing yourself with chick pea flour? believe me, its one hell of a washing agent! Traditionally, south-Indians have an oil bath on auspicious occasions and then use the flour to rub off the excessive oil during the bath. The flour is proven to be good for a fair and glowing skin!

[Roni]

I hardly ever use soap. No one complains, and I work with a bunch of whingers.

[sam g.]

ok, i vowed to never comment on comments, (to myself) but i just read the one by the guy who never uses soap. i have always wondered why a few of my engineering school classmates always reek of body odor. my best guess was that they were homeless derelicts just attending calculus 201 for kicks. now i know that they have simply confused health with hygiene. spend the money, use the deodorant, shave the molester-stash, mouthwash, and you might just find the girl that brushes her hair every morning in your league.

[Leora]

This is why my bathroom floor is stone. No varnish, no slippery bits of any sort, just good traction whether the tootsies are dry or wet.

Do like the Romans used to--hit the steam bath, rub yourself vigorously with olive oil, scrape off the oily scum with a dull blade, rinse in cold water. Refreshing! And more enjoyable if you get someone else to help with the rubbing. Showers with happy endings...hard to believe their civilisation fell.