Dettol – Original

“Lysol Circus Peanut”

This is a warm brown, almost orange, peanut shaped bar of soap from India that has a harsh smell that reminds me of a disinfectant such as Lysol. I guess it's peanut shaped—you know the peanut in the shell?—though flattened. Actually, it kind of resembles those “Circus Peanuts”—do those even still exist? (I know I can still taste them, and feel that weird texture in my mouth.) What it really reminds me of, in shape and color, is a big Circus Peanut that someone stepped on.

Anyway, this soap feels pretty hardcore in the disinfectant department, and kind of has a gritty quality, like a sandalwood soap. Its packaging says that it is “protection against a wide range of unseen germs” (are there ever “seen” germs?), and is recommended by NIMA, which I guess is an Indian medical association. A website says Dettol contains pine oil and other things like chemicals I don't want to type the names of—one of which is toxic to ingest—so not a good soap to wash the kids' mouths out with (if there are any among you that don't now consider that child abuse).

Soap Review No. 6

Pre de Provence – Lavender

"Christmas in Paris"

This is the soap that someone bought me for Christmas one year (can't remember who, but thanks!) which opened up my world to the idea of interesting soap. Before that, I was strictly an Ivory Soap Man (for some reason, it was really important to me that my soap floated), or worse, the deadbeat who used whatever was around—like the roommates' soap—and if there wasn't anything around, then no soap. I was skeptical at first—French soap seeming an unaffordable extravagance—but then I realized this soap actually lasts so long it ends up being cheaper than buying cheap soap. And then, also, I found that it brought me a singular pleasure. Now I associate this soap with the holiday season, and I usually buy a bar of this once a year. It has a really intense, unmistakable lavender fragrance, and is also filled with tiny bits of lavender leaves (or so they would have you believe—it could be soap-makers' Gauloises). (With the autumn leaves/she leaves, and/leaves my love life/on leave.) (Sorry about the poetry aside—but that's what this soap inspires!) Anyway, the texture is always pleasingly rough, and also it leaves bits of debris in the tub—so if you squint, you can justify a bit of a dirty tub as being “French.”

Often, this soap seems ubiquitous—you find it everywhere—well, at least if you shop at health food type places. When I was in New York, for awhile, it seemed I couldn't find it (the town taken over by the Duane Reade/Walgreens conspiracy of blandness) until I realized it was at King's Pharmacy (which, for the sake of New Yorkers, I hope still exists). Looking online, however, it's odd that Pre de Provence don't have a website that leaps off the search engine—maybe they have a French one and you need to use French Google? Most of the i-presence seems to be secondary sellers, yet this must be a huge company—and now they seemingly add new flavors faster than LaCroix water. I'd include a partial list, but it's too long (on one wholesale website I see 30 varieties). I have, in the past, enjoyed (and may write about in the future): linden, mint, verbena, milk, rose, sage, provence, and patchouli. Yet, no website. It seems like, sometimes, the English/French language gap is one thing that is immune to the corruption of money. Maybe I'm making this out to be more sinister than it is, but I can't help but suspect this soap is being illegally manufactured by the forced labor of the cigarette smoking children of deadbeat poets.

Soap Review No. 5

Green Cube

“Hippie Legacy”

Another odd shape—square, brick-like—but it's huge and very rounded at the edges, suggesting that it might have once been so big that it took two people to carry it into the bathroom (and creates a whole different concern about dropping the soap in the shower). This one has a more discernible smell than the others; it's kind of mossy and plant-like and really brings to mind something that hippies would like because it's totally natural—pleasantness be damned—kind of like when vegetables have had too much time in your drain strainer. Is there a slight essence of patchouli?—or am I just imaging that because I'm thinking about hippies using this soap (but sparingly—somewhat in conflict about using soap at all). Maybe this soap cube has been passed down from one generation of hippies to the next, which would make it kind of old, and kind of neglected.

Soap Review No. 4

Black Rectangle

“Subtly Disturbing”

This is a rectangular bar of black soap; the weird thing is that it's kind of a longish, thin bar (I'm trying to think of something to compare the shape to, but I can't—though it does emit an unbearable, high-pitched tone and send me hurtling back in time). Not really, but it is oddly disturbing. Not right for soap. Whenever I think of black soap I think of the scene in one of those old Woody Allen movies where he is really disturbed that a woman he knows (is it Annie Hall?) has black soap—like it's a major sign that they're growing apart. This has a very silky texture when wet—it's pretty nice—but the smell is so subtle that no words come to mind, except for “subtle.”

Soap Review No. 3

Brown Cube

“The Mars”

This soap has the exact shape and weight of a square brick, which is like the old bricks that were more square and less rectangular, for some reason. It occurred to me that maybe it is an actual brick—are some old bricks usable as soap? (I wouldn't think so, because wouldn't they melt in the rain?) When wet, it does get soapy, but has a very subtle (or no) smell. The interesting thing, though, is when wet some words form on it—it looks like: “SAVON DE MARS”—and then some more letters, I think, but it's obscure. Could it be from Mars? (I am thinking the time is not far off when we will bring some minerals back from Mars, some of which will indeed be used as very expensive soap.) Most likely, though, I think, is that this soap is totally haunted—and this is some dead, French trapper's name.

Soap Review No. 2

LUX - Fresh Splash

“Well-Dressed Man”

My first attempt at writing about soap sounds more like ad copy than a review, but it's pretty funny, I think, so I'll include it here: “Tired of smelling like the beauty aisle at Whole Foods? I have taken to buying soap from my neighborhood Indian restaurant, as they carry many beguiling brands. My recent favorite is LUX “Fresh Splash” which makes my bathroom smell like there is a well-dressed man of indefinite foreign origin hiding in there. Am I in danger? Only in danger of smelling good!”

The bar is a deep blue green, kind of shiny, almost metallic, with LUX engraved. I like the name because it reminds me of Lux Interior, my favorite-ever rock star. The packaging includes a drawing of a beautiful woman, the LUX logo in gold, and it says: “With Cooling Mint & Sea Minerals”—though it doesn't strike me as particularly minty or fishy. (The ingredients do include Sea Salt and Mentha Piperita Leaf Extract.) The overall scent evokes masculinity to me, so maybe the woman on the packaging is who you're supposed to attract.

On the side of the package it says: “Be a breath of fresh air.” Which is nice. And Gold Ring Offer** with two stars, indicating that it's explained somewhere, I guess, but where? The ingredient list is long, in small print, and kind of scary, including some that are just letters and numbers, and some very chemical-y, way too long to type, and also some very cool sounding flower and plant names like, Camellia Sinensis Leaf Extract, and Avena Sativa Straw Extract—there's a lot of plant stuff, actually. But then some scary things like Tin Dioxide and Titanium Dioxide. And then, in even smaller print I see the explanation of the two stars: **“May contain a small gold ring. Be careful while using the soap. Don't wash the gold ring away. Offer valid till stocks last.” What? You mean there might actually be a gold ring concealed inside my soap? I wish I'd seen this earlier—I may have already washed the gold ring away!

Update: It has been some time since I finished this bar of soap, and I never did find the gold ring. But just recently my bathtub drain clogged, which has never happened before (causing it to flood the apartment below!) I couldn't help wondering if the reason for this was the gold ring I accidentally washed down the drain?!

Soap Review No. 1

Intro to Soap Reviews

It has long been my ambition to write descriptions of some of my favorite (and least favorite) soap, and as much as I'm passionate about my old favorites, I'm someone who likes to regularly try something new. Once I started trying to write about soap, however, I realized it's more of a challenge than I had anticipated to get the essence of the fragrance into words. But I have given it my best, old college try. Here I have chosen to write more about fragrance—rather than other qualities the soap might have, such as how it treats the skin—though I'm also mentioning appearance and packaging.

Recently I was “stranded for several months” in a rustic cabin in the “North Woods”—surrounded by only wild animals and the cabin owner's odd assortment of survival tools. It was a pleasure in such circumstances to experience the soap of others; not necessarily something I would buy. But because of its long discarded packaging and absence of (as of yet) Google Nose (not to mention, no internet up there), I was only able to refer to these soaps by description, so I've included these reviews early on in my list, named merely: Brown Cube, Green Cube, and Black Rectangle. The sixteen soaps listed here are more or less what I've used in the last year—sometimes a soap lasts a long time! Also, at some point, I decided to give each soap a nickname, which I've included, enclosed in quotation marks under each soap name.

I originally published all of my soap reviews at once, the way that new television shows release all of the episodes of an entire season AT ONCE, in order to facilitate “binge-watching.” I have since decided that I am not in favor of binge-anything, including reading soap reviews, so I'm going to now re-release these reviews (as if anyone fucking cares) one at a time, over time. This will give me a chance to revisit some of these soaps and revise my reviews (maybe) as well a add new reviews of new and exciting soaps... marching into the bubbly, clean, and good-smelling future!