Deciji Sapun

“All Out of Tears”

This small bar of soap cost me about $1.50 at one of the little storefront groceries on Milwaukee's south or west side (can't remember exactly where I bought it!) but it has loomed fairly large in my soap empire due to its mysterious stature. I mean, I'm sure it's not really mysterious, it's just the language barrier, but I'm not even sure where it's from or what it's supposed to be all about. Oh, yeah, and the fragrance is a conundrum, too, maybe the real mystery here. It's right in front of me, but I can't describe it. The only word I come up with is “medicinal”—it's slightly medicinal, but what does that mean? Does that mean it reminds me of pHisoHex® (that doctor soap my mom always had a green plastic bottle of when I was a kid)? I'm not sure, because it's been a half-century since I smelled that stuff, so I guess I'm at a bit of a loss regarding the fragrance.

There is some info on one side of the packaging, in three languages, but none of them are English—and I don't know what the languages are. On the other side there is an ingredients list, also not in English, but partially understandable (you know—aqua. parfum, tallowate, glycerin), and partially not—chemistry language—so that's not anything I understand much of either. When I look up the words on the packaging on the internet, I see some listings—and looking at a few, I have determined this is a medicated baby soap from Serbia. That is something, I guess, and maybe all I need to know. Oh... I didn't describe the picture on the glossy paper packaging, which is the most striking thing. It's a kind of dated looking illustration, like something from an old children's book, in a red oval, of a pink skinned baby sitting in wooden washtub with soapy water running over the sides. The baby's head is all covered in white suds, so it looks like one of those old powdered wigs. The baby looks pretty happy, really—far from tears, perhaps conspiratorial. There's also a green clover with the letter “M” in it. If that doesn't stand for “Mystery fragrance,” I'm at a loss. I'm going to try to smell it once more... nothing. It's like no other soap I have, yet it reminds me of something, somewhere, sometime—from far and long, I guess, ago.

Soap Review No. 80