Bar soap conspiracy
Most folks probably use or have used bar soap at some time or other. Have you ever noticed how many name-brand products seem to lose the ability to lather once they get down to a sliver? Or that once they are a sliver they seem to not stick to another bar in order to use all of the product? Or that sliver gets brittle and breaks into ever smaller unusable pieces? Well, we have and suspect that it is some kind of a corporate formulation conspiracy designed to sell more soap. So for the last year we've been conducting a very unscientific little experiment.
It goes like this:
Instead of the name-brand stuff, we've opted to buy and use as many different off-brands as possible. Call them indie brands, from health food stores, the co-op, the dollar store, handcrafted soap from the local artisan, etc. Some are natural, some are expensive, some do not last long, some are great values, others have a pleasant scent (or not) and so on. What these indies do have in common is they do not share the end of bar, characteristics described for the name-brand ones above. I don't know why that might be except for some extra profit motivated corporate manufacturing reason.
So without naming names and not necessarily favourites, here are a couple of comments. By far, the most interesting bar soap we've used is because of it's scent. Advertised as pine tar, it smells something between a machine shop, a tire store and a leather craft store. It's scent is neither disagreeable nor unpleasant, just interesting. It comes in a black box with gray and green trim and made in Kentucky, I think. If you see it in the store, give it a whiff. The other is a huge bar of soap made in the U.S. We find it at the local dollar store and by far it is the best value. As for size and if it were a beer, it would be an oilcan size of Fosters. Out of the box, the bar is a monster and whats-his-name-in-chief would likely have a problem handling it.
Yeah, I know, no proof and our observations are not science but there you go. We've found a few products we like a lot, a few more we like and several which we don't but they all last past the "sliver" stage. We'll probably expand our little experiment to include other, every day, household things as well. With luck, we'll be using less of the same-o, same-o ubiquitous product brands here.
= new reply since forum marked as read
Yes I know it’s often more expensive and the plastic bottles are not great for the environment. But unlike bar soap, liquid body wash does not leave soap scum in the shower, especially with the hard water around here. I usually get Suave, it’s cheap and often on sale, and smells as good as the more expensive stuff.
Plus at my age it’s not fun to pick up the slippery bar soap from the floor. 
