I thought soap was a lathering agent. It’s the water that gets you clean, the soap merely facilitates, and as the soap is always sluiced with water it is therefore instantly cleaned at each use.
Just my own ideas, I have no facts to hand to back them up.
I love this board because I then discover all the variety of humans in topics I would never think about usually!
For me, rubbing the soap on a washcloth sounds gross, never liked this in childhood, and, actually, making the soap foam on the hairy parts of my body is one of the fun moments of shower time.
Some bars of soap are harder than others and don’t feel nice indeed, particularly if it’s a big block of soap I had to cut up in two or more pieces beforehand and there is jagged edges, but it takes a couple showers to even this out.
OK - While we are at it - Who else sticks the last bit of the old bar onto the new replacement?
But do you share the soap cleaner? Ew.
The UV soap-cleaner disinfectant station takes care of that.
The same one?:eek:
Me. I don’t get proper lather from a washcloth. My hands aren’t big enough to carry enough soap for a body with as much hair as I have on it.
<raises hand>
I do. And consider, when you are washing your face, what I rub the soap on last.
“Even the dirt… is clean!”
I do. But it usually won’t stay stuck together. So I’m starting to stick the leftover slivers in a dish. When there’s several of them, then you put a little (very little) water on it & let it sit a day or two. It will dissolve into a semi-liquid state – then you use that to refill a liquid hand soap dispenser.
Why, yes, I am a tightwad. And proud of it.
Me, me (raises both hands). I learned that trick here on this MB.
raises hand, with bar of soap in it
I realize that others have chimed in on this already, but this is absolutely how I do it.
Of course, my username may possibly shed some light onto how effective this procedure is, at least in my case…
I vividly remember this from Friends and often think of it - like every time I’m in the shower 
Even professional massage therapists have to learn about this stuff. Most massage schools do a 100 hour beginner’s program, which covers this only very perfunctorily, or the 400 to 500 hour program that maybe goes into a bit more detail. (I’ve only done the 100 hour course myself.)
Contrast that to the really serious massage program that another student from another school described to me – there was a full semester course, with a full size five-color glossy textbook, just on skin diseases (okay, maybe other diseases too that a massage therapist might need to know about). He showed me his book. Lots and lots of really TMI pictures too! Ick! They did a three-year 1200-hour curriculum, or something on that order.
Also: I just noticed a post, a ways up-thread, suggesting that rubbing a bar of soap directly on your wet naked bod is about as appealing-sounding as rubbing a smooth rock on yourself.
Actually, this is done. Hot stone massage is a real thing. People who get one generally say it’s really great. I’ve seen it demonstrated, but I’ve never done one nor gotten one.
Some practitioners combine this with a lot of woo about different kinds of stone material (or crystals!) supposedly having all different kinds of properties, osmotically drawing varying toxins out of you through your skin. That’s probably all baloney. But there are different stones with differing textures, from very smooth to rough (think, pumice or lava). Woo aside, lots of people really like stone massage.
If you get the old, left-over remnant good and sudsy, then suds up the new bar too before sticking them together, I find that they stick together rather well. You might have to be careful to not torque them apart the first few times you use them, but they eventually form a pretty solid weld.
Me too. And my wife. I’ve seen her do it. Although I haven’t observed anyone else’s shower habits first hand (or at least not in many years), it can’t be that uncommon.
“It’s soap… It’s self-cleaning!”
-Chandler to Joey on Friends.
And to add upon, in my own conceptions about soap, I was under the assumption the heavy alkali-based solution it creates with water basically strips the shells off most bacteria or viruses you’ll realistically need to worry about in mere seconds.
I can’t imagine wet soap being a very hospitable environment for anything that isn’t lye-resistant.
In that sense, why not (heh) supply anti-bacterial bar soap as a double-measure?
I do, too, which is why I don’t share soap with my husband. I don’t care if its possible or impossible for germs or fungus or bacteria or whatever to grow on soap, I just keep remembering this episode.