Soap shapes

[Dawni]

I was just looking at my curing shelf and noticed that I seem to be partial to cube shaped soap. I noticed a lot of the ones I liked on Instagram are also cubes.

Although I've made a few batches with it, I really don't like the oval ones I usually make for my mom. I have butterfly shaped for my sister but I'm not too keen on those myself.

I don't mind the usual cuts from the loaves but I tend to not fill mine, and when they're cut they still resemble some sort of block, which I did not realize until today. I don't have a tall skinny mold but if I did I think I'd like that more than the fat short one lol

I like the round Pringles can ones too.

Which shapes of soap do you prefer to make for you and yours? Use? Look at?

 

[lsg]

I use a loaf mold and then cut the loaf into rectangle bars.

 

[artemis]

Loaf mold, cut into rectangles. I'm especially drawn to a plain, creamy, white rectangle bar of soap. For use, though, I most often like round bars-- Pringles can or my cavity mold.

 

[shunt2011]

I prefer rectangle bars though I do sometimes make half round salt soap as I like how they fit in my hand as well. I’ve tried other shapes bit they just don’t sell for me. I just purchased an oval mold from a destash and want to give it a try with salt soap.

 

[dibbles]

Rectangles and rounds for me - and that's pretty much all I make. My tall and skinny and rectangles from loaf molds are the same size as well - 2.5 x 3.5. I'm not a fan of the big high tops or novelty shapes.

 

[Obsidian]

Rectangle from loaf molds or ovals from a individual mold. I don't like round much and won't use any kind of cube, they are way to awkward from me to hold.

 

[earlene]

I also like cube shaped soap, although I make the rectangular soaps for family because that is what they are more used to in the US.

 

[Dawni]

I also like cube shaped soap, although I make the rectangular soaps for family because that is what they are more used to in the US.

Yey another one who likes cubes lol

I tend to make small soaps because we have small hands hehe.. Even back when I used to buy, we had to cut the rectangle ones in half otherwise it's so easy to drop them in the shower.

 

[DWinMadison]

Call me practical. I think soap is supposed to be utilitarian...i.e. what fits in your hand. I like rectangles, disks and ovals. I’m mad impressed with some of the poured shapes I see on here...like the amazing “cupcakes,” but how do you use them? It frustrates me when I give someone soap, and then I see it their bathroom in a year shriveling up in a tray on top of the toilet.

 

[Dawni]

And also maybe how you use them? I don't take the bar and rub it all over. I make lots of lather in my hands and soap with that. Or use a loofah.

 

[KiwiMoose]

Get this - I'm not sure when this habit started, maybe some 20 years ago, but I take my bar of soap and completely wrap it up inside a washcloth and rub that all over my body. Once done, I take the soap out and use the suds left in the cloth to wash my face with. Horror! I use body soap on my face! Yes, yes I do. Always have. Probably always will.

Anyhoo - a square, rectangle, circle or other shape are fine by me - they all wrap up well.

 

[Dawni]

Get this - I'm not sure when this habit started, maybe some 20 years ago, but I take my bar of soap and completely wrap it up inside a washcloth and rub that all over my body. Once done, I take the soap out and use the suds left in the cloth to wash my face with. Horror! I use body soap on my face! Yes, yes I do. Always have. Probably always will.

Anyhoo - a square, rectangle, circle or other shape are fine by me - they all wrap up well.

I have an uncle who uses papaya laundry bar soap for his body, face and hair.. So you're still fine lol

I use the same soap for face n body too

When I was much younger I don't even recall facial wash lols maybe there were but we just didn't bother to buy? So when I started buying handmade soap, and now that I'm making, I use em all on my face too.

 

[DWinMadison]

OK, since were talking about the intimacies of our bath-time rituals, I’ll out myself...I rarely use a wash cloth at all—only if Ive been working in the yard or garage when I have visible dirt or grime. It’s just skin and soap in a really hot shower for me. Its really humid where I live, so I also take two showers almost every day, so we burn through a LOT of soap. Janice is the same way, and it freaks our moms out when they visit because we never remember to lay out wash cloths with their towels. Speaking of...do people call them “wash rags” where y’all live? I find that term so repulsive. For face, Janice has some kind special things called “Wonder Cloths”. I’ve used a benzoil peroxide bar every night since my teen years—have wondered if I could make something similar.

 

[Rune]

I don't like bar soap in the shower. I can't stand it. It falls out of my hands and down on the floor all the time. So I use commercial liquid soap. I can't stand that either, because they add something slimy in there. I feel like coated in an oily substance that is hard to rinse off. Or the commercial soaps are too dilluted and just feels like water with gelatine. The best shower gel and shampoo is dishwashing soap. But I can't say that loud.

I have to make my own liquid soap one day with zero superfat and lots of drying coconut oil. I have very oily skin and needs something really drying. I have tried making liquid soap once, but the scent I added was so horrible and strong I can't use it. So that will be a car wash. I do always have plans to start washing my car. But...

 

[earlene]

I believe the larger cubed soaps are more commonly used to sit in a dish and the washcloth is run over the soap to get the lather, then the lathered wash cloth is used on the body. My soap that does not live in the shower lasts a lot longer than my husband's bar soap that he rubs directly on his body without a washcloth, and also lives in the shower. But even when I am not using cubed soap, my bars of soap don't live in the shower. They live in a soap dish outside the shower and have a lot more time to dry out between uses.

When I was young, wash cloths were the norm and rubbing a naked bar of soap over the body was not the norm at all. I believe that television soap commercials turned naked bar on the bare body into the thing it is today (in the US at least.) I have always used wash cloths, although I use a separate one for my face, than for my body. I draw the line at possible cross-contamination. But then, I almost never use soap on my face anyway; it's Noxzema all the way for my face. I don't know what the norm is in regards to soap usage in the rest of the world. I know that in our last trip to Europe we stayed in several different hotels and only TWO of them actually provided wash cloths. It's a good thing I always pack at least one wash cloth! I know when I traveled in England in the 90's liquid soap dispensers in the shower was the norm, but I didn't see it as much this last trip. And I don't remember wash cloths being an issue in the 90's - not sure if they were the norm then or not. It did make me wonder, though. How do European women remove make-up if they don't use wash cloths? It's not like the hotels provided make-up wipes either, as I do see in some US hotels.

 

[steffamarie]

I have probably 15 soap ends on my shower windowsill in soap draining trays right now. I use them straight on my skin except when I shave - then I work up the lather in my hands first. I use a boughten syndet bar on my face. My favorite shower bar, though, is a boughten hair conditioner bar that I use as an in-shower lotion bar on freshly shaven legs, on my face, and on my upper arms where I have keratosis pilaris. BF uses soap the same way but washes his face with an activated charcoal bar - currently a boughten one because the one I made smells (neem oil...never again).

 

[Marilyn Norgart]

while I have a lot of washcloths--they seem to turn into what I would call wash rags (used for everything but the body). I use the bar directly on the body and they stay in the shower--cuz otherwise I would have to get out of the shower while wet as I would forget them before I got in

 

[Rune]

@earlene European women, or Norwegian women (I don't know what women do elsewhere in Europe), they use either make-up wipes or some round, small discs made of cotton. Like cotton fluff, just banked flat into discs. They add liquid make-up remover to them and wipe away. Maybe some use washcloths, I don't know. But those wet wipes or cotton discs seems to be the most common.

 

[earlene]

Thank you, Rune. I was really curious!