Bath size soap

[Harry Bloomfield, Esq.]

You used to be able to buy small and bath sized soap, but I seem unable to find any bath size any more, just the small ones - any one else noticed this?

[newshound]

Who else remembers soap on a rope?

[Harry Bloomfield, Esq.]

Me, just the one, a freeby from Avon I think - I thought what a silly idea.

[GB]

I'm going to get a well-deserved reputation for meanness, but I save up all the scraps of soap. Once I have enough, I melt them down in an old saucepan and cast myself a decent bath size tablet. (Use an old plastic container as a mould, and when the soap has cooled stick it in the freezer, so it pops out of the mould.) HTH

If you are desperate for bath size tablets, you could do this with new basin sized tablets.

[Max Demian]

No. The soap tablets I see are all bath size, such as green Shield. Unless you mean the big yellow tablets which are really laundry soap.

(I've noticed that people often talk about "bars" of soap when they mean "tablets". Bars are long things that you have to cut up; the infants school I went to had nasty smelling brown bars - fortunately they usually had the white tablets too.)

If you are stingy you can press the thin remains of a tablet onto the new tablet. You used to get wire cages with a handle you put the scraps in to shake in the washing up water. There were also small, foam rubber bags you put the scraps in to wash your face with.

[Andy Burns]

I was going to ask does that still exist? But it seems you can even get NOS green Shield on eBay ...

[Brian Gaff (Sofa]

Any particular brand? I have noticed a lot more multipacks around of late, so you might get 6 smaller bars in a pack. Mabye its now called large and small or something. I actually wonder why you need a seperate bar for the bath when its all the same soap and always ends up too small to use the bit left. Brian

[Brian Gaff (Sofa]

I do and also those naughty bars with a bit of plastic in the middle so you got less soap, but then again, you did not get the tiny left over bit either. Brian

[Max Demian]

I have a sort of memory that it used to be mottled. Or maybe it's just the packaging.

[Andy Burns]

Striated?

The packaging must just blend in on the shelf, I would have said I've not noticed it for years ...

[Harry Bloomfield, Esq.]

Max Demian was thinking very hard :

Not stingy, but I do try to avoid waste. I break the too thin soap into bits, pop them in a liquid soap pump thingumy and add some more water. That resides in the utility, where I usually go to wash my hands after working in the garage/workshop.

[Harry Bloomfield, Esq.]

Max Demian used his keyboard to write :

The last laundry soap I came across was the green Fairy ones I think. All I have found when looking, is the wash- basin tiny ones, which don't last long in the bath or shower. Three for a pound, in the pound shops so not expensive. Even a search online hasn't turned up any 'Bath soap'.

The 'bar' versus 'tablet' maybe derives from where you were raised. I have always called them bars. The brown soap, was it Wrights Coal Tar soap, see through but brown tinted? I quite liked the smell.

I have not seen Lifebouy soap for years and suddenly there are ads appearing on TV for it in squirty bottles.

[Harry Bloomfield, Esq.]

Brian Gaff (Sofa) used his keyboard to write :

Larger bars last longer in the bath and are much easier to find when you lose them. Proportion of waste from a large bar, before it becomes unusable will be much greater than a tidgy bar too.

When a bath size becomes worn, it can then always be reassigned to a wash basin.

[Max Demian]

That's how I remember it. Nowadays it's solid green with _Shield_ across it (with an underline):

[polygonum_on_google]

My mother had a Good Housekeeping book from around 1946/7 which included several such approaches. I think they had how to re-cast soap and making a liquid soap. Quite likely available on the wayback machine...

[Andrew]

How many relatives had received it at christmas and then packaged it up and passed it on to the next relative.

[Andrew]

Imperial leather used to be in two sizes, but about 15 years ago (maybe earlier) the 125 gram bath ones were shrunk to 100 grammes and only became available in packs of four.

[Andrew]

Haven't seen proper Pears coal tar soap for years :-)

[Jim GM4DHJ ...]

that is what I do but I keep any soap on a rope for myself

[RayL12]

...don't buy me any socks and I won't buy you any socks.

I swear the same 'tenner' circulated throughout the family.