Tilley – Australia – Lemongrass & Paw Paw (with Natural Yellow Clay)

“Custard Apple Bob Wire”

This is a perfectly nice soap from Australia—the company is Tilley, they have a website, make a lot of beauty supplies. All organic ingredients—and it came a long way—it should have been more expensive. I ate some paw paw fruit once, and it was pretty good, but I don't remember it having a distinctive fragrance. Likewise, I couldn't identify lemongrass, offhand. The soap's fragrance is pleasant—maybe plant-like fragrance—or maybe I'm just thinking that because it's green. Maybe it's just a soap-like fragrance, or maybe I'm just thinking that because it's soap. It's not real strong or distinctive, so it's hard to nail down. The green color is kind of earthy, and indeed, Australian clay is one of the ingredients. This is probably the nicest soap I have, yet it's hard to get excited about it. I have to admit that I have a slight bias against bar soap that has a certain green shade, because in 1982 I got this terrible rash—never found out what it was from—but the doctor suggested soap—and at that time, I was living in a house with multiple people and I had used someone's green soap in the shower. (Yes, I used to be so cheap, cared so little about soap, I'd just use what was there.) I realize this is totally unfair, but earthy green soap has an uphill battle with me. And that was nearly forty years ago! No wonder we're so slow to evolve. Well, anyway, I've used a paw paw soap—and that's something, when I was 22, I never thought I'd say.

Soap Review No. 99