Dr. Tusk – Siberian Cedarwood

“Pachydermatology”

Think for a while about elephants. When you’re a little kid, elephants are fascinating, but when you get to a certain age you don’t think about them anymore. People who get to a certain age stop thinking about a lot of things, like the solar system, dinosaurs, building forts, making art, horses, scientists, playing with dolls. I would say breakfast cereal and riding bikes, but those are adult activities now, for worse and better. I never stopped playing with dolls, so to speak. Anyway, growing out of some of those things is probably good, but growing up isn’t necessarily, and I’m thinking that we’d be a lot better off if we totally flipped the ages in which people were eligible for working in government—like maybe elected officials were grade school age, and maybe the President was age six until ten, and maybe the Judicial branch would be infants until age four. We might be better off. What would older people do then? I guess become “consultants,” write memoirs, go to large concerts and write comments under classic rock videos on YouTube. Me? I’d like to specialize in writing ridiculous reviews of bar soap that nobody cares about.

This soap seems to be on the up and up, though I’ve done no real research. Is there a “Dr. Tusk? (I mean, besides the touring pharmacist for the band, Phish.) “A portion” of the proceeds goes to the elephants. They use the sustainable palm oil, it’s vegan, and they don’t dissect living bunnies. Good luck fitting the entire name in a form of any kind, or even knowing how to title it—the following is on the box: Dr. Tusk, Hemp + Caffeine, Exfoliating Body Bar, Siberian Cedarwood, Charcoal, Natural Fragrance, Save the Elephants—and then it elaborates: Made with certified sustainable palm oil, caffeine and hemp seed oil, Charcoal Powder + Pumice + Carbon. It’s a black bar of soap with a really nice, subtle grit to it. Very good for bathing. It makes the water black—I guess that’s the charcoal (along with the dirt from your body). The fragrance is pleasant and slightly evokes nature—but isn’t really anything that sets off the nostalgia centers of my brain (though it may well yours). I would use this soap again. Not sure exactly what the caffeine adds to a bar soap, but you might not want to wash your kid’s mouth out with this one—and I’m sure people don’t do that anymore, anyway, right?

Soap Review No. 153