Soap ...

... yes, the saga continueth.
I've still to find the prefect replacement for my beloved Pears (original) Soap. I've tried various substitutes, but nothing really compares.
One of the latest contenders is Rambilldeene Farm Soap. These are pretty good soaps, they last quite well (ie longer than a week), and the leftover bit dissolves nicely into the new tablet.
But the smell, the smell does nothing for me really. The rose is quite nice but very floral. It was quite amusing to sniff Mr Brown wafting off to work, smelling like a rose garden.
The lavender is ok, but still, floral. The peppermint and the eucalyptus had a better, clean-soapy, smell, but were a bit ... tingly, and not quite the smell I'm hankering for.
I've got a little experiment going though. I've bought 6 bars of the unscented, unwrapped them and packed them in paper with Rosemary and Thyme clippings from the garden packed between the bars. Rosemary and Thyme being the perfume of the old Pears. Fingers crossed on that score.
In the meantime, I met a lovely chap at the last Urban Food Market Meat Up I went to (without Mr Brown, he was away, I went with a friend from work). Saltbush Lamb it was, an excellent dinner.
Anyway, this chap, Dave, and I somehow got talking about soap! He suggested I try Saponify, soap made by a friend of his. He said it was wonderful stuff and he was right.
So far we've tried the Rosemary Cedarwood Cinnamon and Lime and the Peppermint, Rosemary and Lavender. Lovely soap, herby smelling rather than floral, soft on the skin and not in the least bit drying.
It's not long lasting though, a bar goes just over a week (I blame Mr Brown and his hairy hide for this). And it doesn't seem to be a reliable source. I tried to re-order some of the one with lime today and it was all sold out. And I could only get 3 bars of the peppermint.
Sill, I whacked on an order for a bar of the Lemongrass Goats Milk, just to see, and at least we'll have soap until the herb clipping experiment is ready.
The search continueth.

Soap ...

... a continuing saga.
Being unable to use Pears Transparent Soap anymore, I gave Dr Bronner's magical cake soap a go. Magical in that a cake disappears in under a fortnight! Lovely soap, non-drying, pleasantly but not overly perfumed, nice feel in the hand but too, too soft. It simply wears and dissolves away too quickly for the thrifty mchousewife in me.
So I gave Lemon Myrtle Soap a go. Much, much better lasting, a lovely fresh lemony smell, non-drying and, although a wee bit scratchy due to the bits in it, a nice feel. Hand made in Australia too, always a bonus. Highly recommended, but it doesn't last forever, so I ordered a couple more bars on Thursday. The site warned me to allow up to 10 days for delivery. Glancing at the wee slither of soap remaining I thought I'd better grab an interim bar, while we waited.
I was in the Australia Geographic shop looking for inspiration (first-born nephew's birthday is soonish) and spotted SoapRocks. The magpie in me grabbed an opal version and paid the exorbitant asking price. Apparently they last ages, wearing away "in your hands like a stream stone in geologic time". We shall see.
Of course, the lemon myrtle soap was delivered yesterday!

I'm Crushed ...

.. faithful readers with good memories will remember my devotion to Pears Transparent Soap.
I love the stuff, used it from when I was wee, and snitched a bar from my mother's pantry/store cupboard upon finally leaving home. I've been using it ever since. I introduced it to our co-habitable/matrimonial home.
You take the last wafer-thin bit of soap, mold it into the dip of the new bar and carry on. If you believe in the theory behind Bach Flower Remedies, I don't by the way, but if you did, you could argue that we are still using the same soap I took from home over 20 years ago. It's a lovely thought.
Anyway, just the other week Mr Brown opened a new box, slipped out a new bar, popped the old snippet of soap on top, to find it didn't have that concave space (created, apparently, not by deliberate, careful molding, but by shrinkage asthe soap dries). Hmmmmm.
I was next in the bathroom. It smelled wrong, strong, overpowering and wrong. It was the soap. "This isn't Pears" I declared to Mr Brown, "we've been sold dud soap, fucking Coles is selling counterfeit Pears! The Fuckers." (Not an unfair charge I contend, they've been sneaky before.) I was accused of overreacting, possible defamation, and told to hurry up we were going to be late for work.
Some judicious Googling proved me right ... and wrong. It wasn't counterfeit soap, Pears had changed the ingredients and the formula. The ingredients list for the soap I love is - Sodium Palmitate, Natural Rosin, Glycerin, Water, Sodium Cocoate, Rosemary and Thyme Extract and Pears Fragrance, a nice, short relatively natural and safe list.
The new list is Sorbitol, Aqua, Sodium Palmate/stearate, Sodium Palmkernelate, Sodium Rosinate, Propylene Glycol, Sodium Lauryl Sulfate (nasty) PEG-4, Alcohol, Glycerin, Perfume, Sodium Chloride, Sodium Meta Bisulfite, Etidronic acid, Tetra Sodium EDTA, BHT, CL 12490, CL 47005, Benzyl Benzoate, Benzyl Salicylate, Cinnamal, Eugenol Limonene, Linalool. A nasty list of toxicity.
I DO NOT WANT.
Turns out a shit load of other people did not want either. Pears has apparently stated it will abandon the new forumla and use one "much closer to the original".
Now I dealt with the packaging change, the disappointing, dull box and cellophane replacing the lovely proper paper individually enclosing each individual tablet. But I won't deal with the new smell, the funny "feel" (it's sort of softish, creepy) and the horrid shape. "Much closer to the original" just isn't good enough Pears, you've lost a customer of some 40-odd years.
Goodbye Pears, hello Dr Bronner's Magic Soaps! The ingredient list for the bar soap isn't quite as comforting as old Pears, but it's a shit load better than what Pears became.
Here endith my rant.

Apparently ...

... and according to The Guardian, the Brown-Mouse soap of choice is a "the design classic of the soap world". I feel special, designer clean in fact.