Yes, I know this is the age of liquid soap, but when it comes to bathing, I still like my old-fashioned bar soap. And since I was a kid, I have been using the meld/merge method. When a bar gets too small to use comfortably, I get out a new one and then use moisture to meld them together into a super-bar!
Many years ago, a dermatologist told me to use Lever 2000 soap. But more recently another dermatologist told me to use unscented Dove. So I got some Dove, but I find that Dove bars resist the meld!
What’s up with that? Anyone else have experience with soap melding?
(I suspect that this thread might end up in Cafe Society or IMHO.)
I’ve always blamed it on the ungodly amount of fat (they call it “1/4 moisturizing creme”) that they put in their bars to hide the effects of hard water. Mind you, I have no idea if this is actually true, but no, you’re not the only one to notice that Dove is meldproof.
Could it have something to do with Dove being detergent, not soap? Are there other detergent bars? Do they meld?
haven’t tried myself. i do know that people would take bar remainders in a tin sauce pan with a little water, simmer until soft, evaporate water, let dry, cut into bars. i do think this was don’t with garden variety soap and involved a dedicated nonfood pan.
Well, not all the time. Every couple of weeks, though. Right now I’m working on a triple-decker.
You have to use the top of the new bar until the letters wear off. Then, after you’re done soaping yourself, rub up a boatload of lather on the bottom of the sliver, slide it back and forth on the top of the new bar for 20 or 30 seconds, and set it gently in the soap dish to dry.
Sometimes they split apart the next time you use them, but it’s never taken me more than two three tries to get a permanent joining.
My experience is exactly the opposite. Having grown up using Dove, I find that any other brand makes me feel as if my skin is cracking apart. Very uncomfortable.
I like Dove as a soap but never considered it as a shower snack. Having my mouth washed out with Life Buoy as a child made me think all soaps were foul tasting. Then, I discovered Ivory. Not bad and it makes excellent catfish bait. I will try Dove but somehow how think think it will have to be by itself because crackers would get pretty soggy in the shower.
It’s one of those things your learn. if I use Dove I feel greasy and lathered in something.
Just a tad softer than bar-soap cloth detergent is my type.
Other soaps I’ve used are much easier to meld. Take the old remnant in one hand, the new bar in the other hand, and soap up as normal while showering, only soaping with two hands. Then just stack them, press lightly once or twice, just to make sure they’ve stuck together, and leave in the soap tray. Within 24 hours they can be used as if they had always constituted a single entity.
No, no! I always thought this was my invention! But I’m pleased to see that so many people know and use the soap welding method. (I always think of it as “welding”.) This thread helps satisfy me that there is sanity in the world.
Umpty-ump years ago, I read a “Hints from Heloise” column wherein she published readers’ suggestions about what to do with nearly-used-up bar soaps. There were dozens of them, all silly. (e.g., Put them all into a mesh bag and swish around in your kitchen sink to get soapy dishwashing water.) Shortly after reading that, I invented the welding method, which wasn’t one of the ones Heloise mentioned.
My method is substantially what Cayuga describes several posts above:
except, as I don’t use Dove, it goes somewhat more easily with a little less rigamarole than that.
ETA: Never tried welding nearly-used-up bars of cream cheese, though. Would it work as well with Cheddar?
I remember being baffled once at reading a magazine column, where the columnist says her husband is the cheapest person in the world, with the evidence being that he melded his old soap onto the new. I was baffled by this because I had assumed that everyone did that.