I know two women who occasionally make soap and give me a bar now and then. I love the soaps, they smell amazingly good.
However, I have always wondered why they make such huge bars. They are the size of bricks, making it awkward to use them in the shower for the first week or so. Is there a reason lot is it just how soap makers roll?
This is a bar of soap after two weeks of daily use. Please forgive the nudity.
This soap came in a cake box!! It’s the size of a freaking cake. Smells delicious but what do I do, cut it with a knife into small pieces??
Soap is often (typically? Except for purposely shrinkflated?) made and sold in big-ass bars that you have to carve yourself. I presume that is simply how they roll. I know at least one place where it’s sold by weight (and you can see the huge loaf the bars are cut from).
I was impressed with your ability to use up soap in such a geometrically intricate fashion until I realized this caption referred to the image above it.
Every once in a while, I’ll treat myself to one of those homemade soap bars. They do smell amazing. Besides being so big, the other issue I have is that the corners are sharp. The first week or so of using the bar is awkward.
FWIW, coincidentally I happened to buy a bar of cheap, as-far-from-handmade-as-it-gets mass-produced soap the other day. I have it here and can see that it was made in Russia and weighs 150 grams. Which you might describe as big-ass. On the other hand, a bar of evidently half as cheap Indian soap was only 75g, definitely “bath-sized”.
I think that’s the reverse of old fashioned. Chunks cut off a large unwrapped or minimally wrapped bar bought at a farmers’ market or a brick-and-mortar are old fashioned.
At least, in the sense that they pre-date buying Irish Spring via Amazon.
I used to make, and sell, soap, and my bars ended up being just under 6 oz and measured 1" x 3.5" x ~2" (IIRC).
My customers liked them that size.
The size of the bars really depend on the predilections of the manufacturer, and what their customers like. (Usually)
The Giant Eagle stores sell Zum goat milk soap. Even though I normally avoid the cosmetic aisle because of the overwhelming scent these smell really nice. All different mixed colors and scents. Various sized bars some of which look like they are designed to snap apart.
Oh wow! That is some monstrous soap. I would not feel safe cutting something like that cake lol.
I have received some larger bars of interesting soap as gifts and I do like them.
But my favorite is the Dollar Tree Shugar Soapworks. They are lightly scented, lather well and last forever. Will keep buying them as long as they are stocked.
I’m not a soapmaker, but I’ve done some looking into the practice. Basically what you do is combine oils, water, and lye along with whatever colorants and fragrance you want, at a certain temperature, and you mix it well. Then you have to pour this thick mixture into some kind of mold(s), let it set, and then cut it and let it cure/dry for a couple of months.
I suspect that large bars are a consequence of the molds being large, and people not wanting to cut a zillion small bars for aging, rather than a smaller number of larger ones.
I use reg’lar store-bought soap (the stuff like Dial, Coast, Zest, Irish Spring, etc.) and, if anything, I wish the bars were larger, so they’d last longer. But then, I have fairly large hands.
