NOLA – for Toilet, Bath and Shampoo – Hotel Bar Soap

“US 34”

That “tagline” is for U.S. Route 34, an old national highway that runs from Chicago to Colorado and passes through Burlington, Iowa, at the Mississippi. According to the light blue and white, two-tone packaging, this hotel bar soap was made by the Iowa Soap Company, in Burlington. I could imagine taking a car trip from Chicago to the Rocky Mountains (stopping in Burlington at Jerry’s Main Lunch for a late breakfast), traveling along US 34 and staying at motor hotels where you’d find this soap. It’s got a mild fragrance, and you can wash every part of y’self with it. I’m not going to knock myself out trying to recall the scent, so I’ll just say it does remind me of soap in my childhood (1960s). But what does “NOLA” mean? That’s the deeper mystery, and I can only speculate. There’s a soap company by that name, but their website indicates: not the same Nola. An article from the Ames Tribune offers some history—the company originated in the 1800s, and there was also NOLA Soap Flakes, for laundry, and lots of mergers, over time—but no clue to the meaning of the name. Naturally, one thinks: New Orleans, but that’s way down the river. It could be a woman to whom you’d plead, “Please baby please baby please baby baby baby please!” And there’s a record album with that name by “sludge metal” band, Down. I should have known that this journey would end in sludge.

Soap Review No. 236