Bar soap is superior to liquid soap

[Twistybranch]

• feel you have it in your for hands longer and have to scrub longer to get the squeaky feeling off the skin- thus feels cleaner
• less waste of packaging
• less waste of product. I feel you use so much more than needed with liquid soaps and bar soap lasts an age
• much much cheaper than liquid soap (standard bar soap vs standard liquid soap, not the fancy stuff)
• looks pretty in a soap dish
• can get really beautiful smelling and looking handmade bars
• hands feel softer

I do keep liquid soap in the bathroom too (for guests to use) but I never see bars in peoples bathrooms anymore.

We have silicone soap mats and the soap is never soggy. Saves plastic and cost.

Another bar soap convert here. I never liked how bars went soggy but saw the magnet holders on sale in a beautiful soap shop and thought it was worth a go. Ended up buying a cheap version from ebay and never looked back! No more soggy soap. I do still have liquid soap for guests however.

I’ve never thought to provide liquid soap for guests. Is this a thing?

I understand why visually/psychologically people might think bar soap is ‘germy’ or ‘grimy’ but, by dint of its very nature, surely it can’t be?!? Nothing is going to live for very long on a bar of soap! A PP upthread even said she cultured one at school and nothing grew

I am a self confessed pretentious liquid soap user (Aesop in the bathroom for when guests visit 😂) but I have recently found myself going back to bars as they just get you cleaner and last SO much longer. I also have a lovely salicylic scrub bar for the shower which has transformed my problematic bacne issues

No, soap as in soap. We are the victims of collosal sums of money being spent on super clever marketing to think that we need their products to stay clean and smell fresh. It's absolute ballony, if you aren't selecting for the most aggressive, stickiest bacteria by using a bactericide on your skin every day you really don't smell. Water and a scrub is perfect, your skin is more hydrated and your bank balance is better. There are allot of resources out there about this, they just don't have the funding of gaxosmith. I get that allot of people don't believe it because they have spent there whole lives using soap. I'd just say try it and see how you feel.

I don't have enough guests to have separate soaps, surely most people's guests are their family anyway, my mum, would have thought it strange to have a different soap when she visited if I used bar soap

I have never been keen on bar soap, especially in other people's houses. And there was some comedian (think it might have been Micky Flanagan) talking about that one bar being used by all and sundry, and on granddad's arse!

I'm not a fan of bar soap on hands especially shared bathrooms, but I love using it in the shower and don't bother with shower gel anymore. I feel so much cleaner using bar soap.

I prefer bar soap too. I did it as an experiment, because I got sick of replacing the soap bottles so often amd how much weight they added to my grocery bags and how much space they took up in the bags and on the shelves.

I have really dry skin on my hands and I don't have that with bar soap. I am never going back. I now also use bar soap in the shower and I also have a shampoo bar. It works well.

I worked for years in the plumbing industry. What were your parents doing with the soap? Were they allowing the slivers of old soap to go down the sink whole? If not, the water used to rinse their hands would/ should have diluted and washed away residue. Are we talking about a sink and pipes in situ for 50+ years and never cleaned out?

Washing machine experts will tell you to use powder instead of liquid and never those gel sachets, which clog the machine up. But millions of people use the gel sachets without problems.

I prefer soap in the shower - I use castile soap from All Natural Soap which is just solid olive oil and doesn't upset the skin's balance (and olive oil's been used as soap since at least Ancient Greece, so definitely not a fad!). Have liquid for hands but keep meaning to experiment with bars, I wouldn't want to share bar soap though so would always have liquid available. I do have Aesop in the kitchen but try to remember to hide it when guests come as it's bloody expensive and I'm not that generous! Not sure if that makes me pretentious or not...

PS Not sure Dove counts as soap as it's quarter moisturising cream - Google's pretty convinced it's the worst thing ever for skin! Probably not great for the plumbing either...

Bar soap is better for environmental and financial reasons. And it isn't dangerous to use:
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2249330/

Water is NOT enough to clean you!

A few years ago I had a friend to stay with me for while her partner was having major surgery in my local teaching hospital. While visiting the hospital she picked up an e-coli bug that was going round. I think all those worried about how hygienic bar soap is might want to think how hygienic it is to get up from dealing with a bad bout of diarrhoea and put a dirty hand on the plastic dispenser to access the liquid soap. Which I think is probably how I contracted e-coli too. At least with bar soap you might touch it with contaminated fingers but the whole process of running it and your hands under a tap should leave it clean when you put it back in the soap dish.

so big pharma marketing influenced the ancient Babylonians?
Sure, no-one needs all the endless 'products' we are sold but the human use of soap to keep clean predates all that by thousands of years, there's no conspiracy there.

This... and please god, use it on your whole body - your chest, midsection and feet still sweat in summer

I use both
Bar and liquid soap on the sinks
Wash with bar soap then follow with shower gel or shower oil

I think all those worried about how hygienic bar soap is might want to think how hygienic it is to get up from dealing with a bad bout of diarrhoea and put a dirty hand on the plastic dispenser to access the liquid soap. Which I think is probably how I contracted e-coli too.

You can’t have washed your hands sufficiently then. Your hands should be clean after you’ve actually washed them.

I use bar soap for my underarms. Peri has made me a bit whiffier than normal and it was recommended on here to use bar soap there. I used Shield (reminds me of my nana when I was little) and currently got a bar of Imperial Leather for the nostalgia too - though that doesn’t smell like I remember sadly. I have a Joseph Joseph soap dish and none of mine ever get soggy or cracked, as it drains. I get the occasional bit that needs a wipe from being put on the dish when still wet but that’s it. I do also use Aveeno Baby wash as shower gel as everything else seems to make me itchy.

We also have hand wash in the kitchen and at the bathroom sink. I have Joseph Joseph dispensers that I buy the Carex Sensitive refill pouches for.

Always bar soap for hand washing, I hate liquid soap. Currently using Shield in the family bathroom and Imperial Leather in the en suite, both of which make me feel quite nostalgic. I bought some olive oil soap from a Turkish bath (actually in Turkey) years ago and it was beautiful but I've never managed to find one as nice since then.

Shower gel in the shower though as I find bar soap leaves a scummy residue on the shower screen.

Do you think you get as dirty as a Babylonian? Did Babylonians have access to running water at home whenever they needed it? This is difficult, but I, and many others, have not used soap in showers or baths for many many years (10 for me) and KNOW it is unnecessary. You have only used soap and THINK you need it whereas I KNOW you don't. I get you will be all defensive because your status quo is being attacked so sorry about that, but please try opening your mind to new concepts. It's not a conspiracy, just capitalism.

Dude, water washes sweat off. It's just salt, salt desolves in water.

If you can afford something and like it and want to buy it, why on earth would you need to justify it?