In which I’m lazy and use an obvious title that rhymes with a common plural noun.
You’d think that being a partner in a company that makes fresh, handmade soaps and body and bath products would pay off in some way. That the years of work, the thousands of dollars invested, the cabinets filled with awesome soap that Joanna made would be worth a little something.
And yet.
And yet, I still found myself in the shower tonight asking Joanna “Jo, do we have any soaps that don’t hurt?”
Really. There are a half dozen soaps in our shower, none of which are made by Joanna, all of which are some kind of exfoliating bar ( if you define exfoliating as abrading various parts of your body). Look: I’m as happy as the next guy to have a little texture in my soap (the soap I use for soaping, that is), but what kind of crack-smoking psychotic makes soap with something approximating glass shards added as an exfoliant?
And don’t get me started on the little loofah soap dealie. You’ve seen ‘em: slices of soap with loofah inside them. Made by jamming a loofah into what’s effectively a fat tennis ball can, then melting and pouring translucent soap into it. Let it harden, pop it out, slice it up, and you have a delightful looking piece of soap that’s utterly useless unless you’re a masochist.
See, the soap melts away, leaving the loofah raised up above the surface, but not soft at all – so you can’t use it as soap, you can’t use it as loofah, but you can use it at Gitmo to replace waterboarding.
Looks like a slice of tomato. Feels like a giant steel cat tongue.
So Joanna finally handed me a piece of soap (though inexplicably still not one she made) without rocks, sand, glass or hardened loofah in it, and it stank like South Florida grandmother with a bad perfume addiction.
I really need to talk to Joanna about this.
you’re back.
Woohoo…a true Brad post!
I think it’s a male-female difference thing. I love my exfoliating bars of soaps; the more they feel like a thousand razors on my skin, the better. Dh, like you, grumbles about soaps having “stuff” in them. Says he doesn’t need to have his epidermis taken off while he’s getting clean, and wonders what sort of damage the “stuff” is doing to our drain and septic tank. Men.
You are a very mad woman. Most of us do not feel that way! Gentle, yes? ‘Like razors’ = need therapy!
It’s my only masochistic streak, I swear! I don’t do leathers and chains.
(Oh dear, Ann doesn’t know me; I hope she understands sarcasm, because sarcasm is my middle name.)
Ah, my sarcasm filter was obviously turned off yesterday. Was preparing for a day vacation – took me two weeks to get ready for it, so I’m pretty frazzled!
I was so brain-dead last night…I actually meant hyperbole, not sarcasm, but I think you knew what I meant.
I just like to say things to bug Brad. LOL!
Which is why I love you. BTW – When I was little, I thought that word was pronounce hyper-bowl. So I wasn’t always the shining intellect that you see before you today.
Some of us were born shining with intellect; some of us needed a little scrubbing…with those scratchy soaps!
…and none of us surprised that a writer didn’t start out as being clever! He obviously was in dire need of scrubbing and a good woman. Good thing he has found both! lmao
I don’t know, buddy. I like Dial soap and I’ll use whatever shampoo there is during the rare periods my head isn’t shaved. I use disposable Gillette razors and Barbasol shaving cream (the cheapest and best shaving cream) and unscented generic bay rum aftershave. I use Mitchum roll-on anti-perspirant. I spend very, very little on this stuff and this is the most I’ve thought about it in a long time.
I don’t criticize men who are more into the skin and hair products and cologne, but none of that is for me.
Matter of taste, priorities and laziness, really. I don’t see how my life could be measurably improved by shopping for, buying and using the “products”. I do see how that would be expensive and a boring pain in the ass.
I like Quilted Northern toilet paper. I’ve found it the least abrasive and also never causes clogs.
My Panamanian status prevents Al Gore, Jr, from punishing me any more than he already does by thinking that he won an Oscar for a shitty movie and won a Nobel Peace Prize over the vastly more deserving Ingrid Betancourt and he got rich in the process.
Brom – I’m certainly no metro guy myself, and was completely in step with your way of thinking (including using Barbasol, which kicks ass except for the rust rings it leaves in my shower) until I actually tried a real soap that was sent to Joanna for review on her blog. Now I only like the good stuff, which is convenient since I get it for free.
I also started shaving with an old Gilette injector from the 50′s, and aside from the huge savings in blade costs over the ridiculously complex crap they sell now, found that it works WAY better. Combined with shaving soap Joanna makes for me that I use a brush with, it actually makes shaving pleasurable.
Who knew?
As for the Nobel committee, well, it’s not like they haven’t fucked it up before. Al Gore was a horrible choice, bordering on retarded. But Yasser Arafat wasn’t exactly a shining example of a peace-loving motherfucker, either.
Brom, I think you need a care package from Product Body, because, my friend, you haven’t been born yet….
now thats frickin funny. a giant steel cats tongue. i totally agree.
i prefer smooth soaps myself.
lol i also agree with jo, brom needs a care package. DIAL soap? omg..i think my ears are bleeding.
Oh, this is PERFECTION! I’m a soaper but my husband will only use Ivory! Ever! LOL!
Ivory leaves a heinous gunk deposit. 99 44/100% pure maybe, but pure what?
ROFLMA!!! This had to be the funniest soap post I’ve ever read. I love my luffah soap but I think my hubby could relate to feeling like his skin was being peeled off when he tried to use it himself. LOL! After the last “scraping” I don’t think he trusts me anymore. LOL! AAAAH you men. LOL!
I agree soooo much with the article! We have just started making our own soaps, from our own olive oil (we have a 22 acre olive farm in Spain). We only use wild lavender or chamomile as exfoliants – the point is it should be GENTLE exfoliation, not the ‘take your skin off’ type.
Like the site, too, by the way. We are just starting to work on our website, writing copy isn’t as easy as it sounds!
How cool is owning an olive farm? So cool. Olivey. As an aside, and as a blatant attempt to pad my wallet, I do a lot of freelance writing (did all the copy for our company site, Product Body) and am available for assignments……
Just saying.
Yeah. See below.
Yeah, it is pretty cool, I must say! I grew up in the US (SD, in fact), moved to England, worked in IT for yonks, now am here farming. Olive oil makes fab soap, and of course, it’s *our* oil, so even better!
I did see you do freelancing – might be interested if not too expensive! I liked what you wrote for PB…
lmao! I live with someone like you! Sure, he’ll use other peoples soap, but not mine…what gives??!!
No sympathy here.
Be thankfull for the lovlies you get, ok some are sandpaper for the skin but you’ll survive
(very funny post, thanks for the laugh)
Oh my gosh this is hilarious! Can I please post this on my soap blog? I love it! You can see my blog here: http:/www.soapylove.blogspot.com.
Debbie – Thanks for the compliment, I’m glad you like it! You can write a post on your blog mentioning this of course, with a link to the direct post – http://www.boneinthefan.com/soap-duds.html – but I don’t let people copy my posts verbatim for use on their blogs, sorry.
Is that what you were asking?
This was hilarious. And also a great lesson on what people really think about exfoliating soaps. I put stuff in mine but grind it up fine so that it doesn’t clog the drains. That way, it fells scratchy but not razor-y. I have seen handmade soap with whole coffee beans in there. Who wants to deal with that? Then again, it might make the drain wookie smell better…or worse.
I don’t have any of my own soap in the shower either. For some reason, people like to give me soap as gifts.
Hi Brad-
totally understand! I’ll send my readers over. Thanks for the great article!
Debbie
Debbie,
Thank you for sending folks over, and thanks for the compliment!
Simplicity is best. Efficiency is better. However, Loofah soaps are WORTHLESS. I agree. If one can neither lather up nor exfoliate. Why did that loofah sacrifice being plucked off the stem again ? Vegans will quash loofahs from being exterminated for faux vanity. BOYCOTT loofah soaps !
Not sure how we ended up on your blogs but it was fun reading it while we were on supersonic hold with comcast. Not sure if we will get connected to Ottawa again for customer service but your webpages made our day. By the way, any ideas why Haagen Daz closed down in Jupiter ?
Glad I could help with Comcast hold. As for the Haagen Dazs, if you are talking about the one in Abacoa Town Plaza, I assume it closed because Abacoa Town Plaza sucks.
[...] thinking: that I’m going to start whinging about exfoliating soap again. I’ve done that post though, and that’s not [...]