Soap bars -going back in time

My 10 year old granddaughter recently asked me “Grandma, what is a bar of soap?” ?

I use either Imperial Leather or Nivea talc after my shower, it always leaves me feeling fresh and cool.

I know that many people think it is a thing for old ladies but I love it. My mum always used talc and i guess it follows on from that.

Waitrose do an unperfumed talc for sensitive skin in their “Essentials” range. It’s a generous size, and not expensive. I like talc, although a friend was shocked I used it, and said isn’t it just for old ladies!

I use talc ethel
Cuticura, but on a large powder puff and very sparingly (and not near sensitive areas iyswim). I find it's very good to use if I go to hot climates too.

I have been a Lush devotee since childhood, but if you aren’t on board with shopping there, may I shout out my friend Ashley at the Glasgow Soap Company? Really lovely things www.etsy.com/uk/shop/GlasgowSoapCompany

I bought some Cuticura talc last summer ethelbags but I only used it once. I'd forgotten what a mess it made of the bathroom floor and haven't used it since.

This thread reminds me of talc. Does no one use talc anymore, you rarely see it apart from baby talc or foot talc

I love soap too for all the reasons above, I tried lush hair wash soap it was lovely but at a five r a bar expensive, I tried a black soap from lush too it was lovely as was the Honey I washed the kids, I loved bronleys in the seventies but nowadays asda just sell a few cheaper brands, the best being dove.

As a child, our soap came from Woolworths. It was cheap, sold in plain plastic bags, and if I remember right,3 colours. They had no perfume and were really harsh on the skin.
Astral used to make a gorgeous soap in the 60's, but too expensive for our cash strapped family.
As a teenager, the epitome of a classy soap was the Bronnley Lemon shaped soap, but the perfume never seemed to transfer to the lather.
Then a friend bought me a present of 3 Morny Sandlewood soaps for my birthday. I was in heaven.
In my twenties, Marks and Spencers made a Peach soap, which was fabulous, along with the Talc etc. It really did smell like a sweet peach. They also used to do one called French Fern which was just so gorgeous.
Having just spent 12.5 hours at work, I would so love to have a cool bath in French Fern right now with a light dusting of the Talc.
Please bring it back M+S ??.

I remember White Windsor soap annsixty

sorry - should have said 'of course'

My childhood memories of soap are Imperial Leather (with the label to stop the soap going soggy),
I remember the advert - "It stands on its name" which of was a double-entrendre, put it label side down and it won't get soggy plus the name speaks for itself as 'quality' loopylou

I use liquid soap in the kitchen but bar soap everywhere else.
We were rather shocked recently when our 8 year old grandson came to stay and didn`t know how to use bar soap as he hadn`t come across it before!

I love Nesti Dante soaps from Amazon; big bars, beautiful lasting perfumes, last ages. Since using soap I no longer have dry skin, the skin on my heels doesn't get rough/cracked and I don't feel 'slimy' afterwards, which I did with shower gel.
My childhood memories of soap are Imperial Leather (with the label to stop the soap going soggy), dad's Wright's Coal Tar and Pear's of course (my grandmother's choice). Of course there were the big bars of red carbolic soap, hideous stuff!

My trendy young student daughter has recently informed me she's going to be using good old fashioned soap bars from now on.

I've just bought some bar soap from the English Soap Company, Haven't used it yet but they are HUGE bars and smell gorgeous. I'm storing them in my undies drawers.

Imperial leather I prefer than a gel but I'm always the one eeking out the last stub as the men in the house prefer to start a new bar. My son uses a charcoal soap and that is a real mess as you can imagine

During the war,?when everything was rationed and times were hard we used a solid ,quite large block of soap, called White Windsor.
It was used for everything, baths, clothes but not hair I believe.
It never did my complexion any harm.

When I was very hard up I tried soaking bits of soap in warm water then squeezing them together but it doesn't work, or, if it did, only for a while!

Jalima1108 I had one of those things you describe Princess Diana using - I had no idea I was in such good company! It was very fiddly and the different soaps just separated again once out of the mound & used as soap, so I gave up on it. It would have worked if your remnants were all of the same type of soap, I think.

My husband bought 2 bars of Sunlight soap in Kenya & brought them home with him, I now know what to do with them, thank you!

Thank you, GrandmaCornwall, for your suggestion, I will contact Lakeland to see if they will. Funnily enough, Lakeland was the first place I looked, to no avail! I wonder what they’d make it from, now plastics are out of favour? Bamboo, perhaps?

Savon Noir is very popular in France, and used for several things. Here's a link (there are better ones, difficult to copy):
polkagirlshop.com/products/savon-noir?variant=35921099209

I can't imagine Diana spending her evenings fiddling about with scraps of soap, Jalima, Princess Anne, yes, but who knows what goes on behind closed doors? And yes, one of her tiny scraps probably cost a lot more than my box of three.

I'm sure that I read something years ago about Princess Diana not wasting the small leftover bits of toilet soaps - she had a gadget that would take the small bits of soap and squash them together to make a whole bar.

I don't suppose they were Knight's Castile or Imperial Leather though.

A bar of white soap is the best thing for rubbing on a dampened stain on clothing before washing in the machine - I find it works much better than Vanish spray.
It doesn't have to be washing soap - remember those? Large bars of Sunlight and Fairy? Can you still buy them?

My DF always washed his hands with the large block of Fairy Household soap when he came in from the garden. He also used to use green soft soap for washing his hair.
None of this new-fangled scented rubbish for DF!