Around six months ago I realized that I had never thought about soap ever. I knew the whole axe phylum was lame, but I'd been using the same bar soap for my whole life and wondered if I could do better. Results:
TOP SHELF
--gum thingy, unused just like everybody else's gum thingy
--toothbrush, toothpaste. Different topic.
--standard Dove: what I've used my whole life, neutral, sturdy
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Agg-Tval Eggwhite Soap: smells like a mcmuffin but cleaner, and I wanted a face soap for girl guests.
--
Coco CHANEL body soap: luxury item, smells simultaneously like victory and the opposite of napalm
MIDDLE SHELF
--background minibottle,
DR BRONNER'S peppermint: certainly tingly
--foreground minibottle,
Bath & Body Works Oak Signature: This soap had super high reviews but was discontinued, and every available 10oz bottle sells for $40 to $100 online. But I found one overmatched private seller in the backwaters of Amazon who, on account of the five typos in his listing, had fourteen bottles left for $6.50 each. I bought all fourteen, soap unseen. Results? Eh, it's just above average. But it's a hot market and I am the last tycoon.
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Sappo Hill Oatmeal: underdog champion of the oatmeal bracket, it's an honest oatmeal smell, reminds me of spilling maypo on the box scores before 5th grade, but, critically, it also works as a soap.
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L'OCCITANE VERBENA: I could use this everyday for eight years and it would still be the same brave brick. Indestructable and lemony.
BOTTOM ROW
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Caswell-Massey Sandalwood Woodgrain Soap: looks like a pinewood derby car & smells like bubblegum, but is also masculine and is also exotic. "The palm tree at the end of the mind / Beyond the last thought / Rises in the bronze decor," in soap form.
--
Tanner Goods WILDWOOD It took me a goddamn long time to find a good forest soap. BOOM.
DISCUSSION
In the end I tried fifty soaps and those were the survivors. Please don't insult them by asking if they make good suds or if they leave a film. They make incredible suds. They don't leave any film. I tried fifty ****ing soaps and made a spreadsheet and trust me guys these are all phenomenal soaps.
not shown
If you like coconut, the most evocative coconut out there is
The Body Shop Coconut Soap. I would use it all the time but it leaves a clammy cobweb on my balls.
By far the most interesting soap I tried was
Caswell-Massey Number Six. This is a soap designed in 1780 and was the favorite soap of President George Washington. It's interesting because it has five pungent smells that not only overwhelm you but are all 100% unidentifiable. It got to the point where I was taking this soap around to dinner parties trying to get help in figuring out the smells, but nobody ever solved it. Washington the inscrutable! I liked it a ton but it got banned from the showcase rack because it overpowers every noun in the room and anything it touches turns orange. RECOMMENDED.
CONCLUSION
I know way more about soap than I did six months ago. I am a straight single guy, but I'm gonna smell how I want, and it turns out that what I want depends on my changing moods. Note that before the soap project I'm not even sure I knew I had moods. And btw, once guests get over the initial shock, they are completely gung-ho. The project was a success. If your favorite bar soap was not shown, feel free to mention it and I'll check my spreadsheet and see if I rated it.