SOAP:
Out of the blue one day my husband asked me, “do we have any soap? You know the proper non-liquid stuff”. Now, after trying a bar of Faith in Nature hand made soap that’s all he uses in the shower and for hand washing. My husband explains what inspired this unexpected change.
Just when we were starting to address the plastic waste problem Covid19 came along. But I’m still determined to do what I can and whilst thinking about my disposable plastic use, it dawned on me that we only had liquid soap for washing in the shower and hand washing. And we all know liquid soap only comes in plastic bottles and often a plastic pump dispenser too.
Maybe I could actually just use a bar of soap in the shower and for hand washing! It amuses me that I thought this was quite daring and revelatory at the time. Just shows how completely brainwashed I was into thinking a bar of soap was old fashioned or just a disposable hotel freebie.
Linda, in her usual efficient manner, quickly provided some natural hand made soaps to try. I settled on the Faith in Nature soap. It comes in a recyclable cardboard box and smells great (particularly the grapefruit one), there’s even a shampoo bar for those with more hair than me.
It’s great when you get a brand new soap bar out of the box for the first time. That smell and unused purity of the bar. You don’t get that with a new bottle of liquid soap.
Top tip – when the soap gets too small for practical use in the shower, squash the little bits together to make a hybrid soap for handwashing. You might think this is going a bit too far, but nothing goes to waste!
My brief investigation into the world of soap highlighted several other environmental reasons that might persuade you to change. Apparently, liquid soap uses more energy to produce and transport than a bar of soap. This is because the process to make liquid soap is more complex, the bottles are heavier and take up more volume than the equivalent soap bars.
My soap bars seem to last just as long as liquid soap bottle, if not longer. Was I being really wasteful with the liquid soap – probably.
This led me to me to wondering if I was washing too much!! But that’s one change too many for me.
I’ve listed below some of the hand made soaps I’ve tried. Use code ‘linda’ at checkout for a 5% discount.