How Many Days Do You Go through a Bar of Soap?

JaneSong on 15/07/2022 - 15:52

I've been intrigued lately about the cost of soap bars. As you may have noticed the prices have been steadily climbing and even budget soaps are now around 60c each.

So, I was pondering about how long it takes for you to go through a bar of soap. 85,90,100g. They all seem to be about the same size, so I'm just going to throw it out there. I would appreciate it if you could adjust your length of usage to 100g or something if you use larger soaps.

Generally I go through a bar of soap every 5 days. Is this normal or not?

Poll Options

  • 70
    1 day
  • 3
    2 days
  • 1
    3 days
  • 1
    4 days
  • 8
    5 days
  • 3
    6 days
  • 20
    7 days
  • 1
    8 days
  • 1
    9 days
  • 1
    10 days
  • 1
    11 days
  • 1
    12 days
  • 5
    13 days
  • 300
    14+ days
Health & Beauty

Comments

      • endolphin on 19/07/2022 - 00:16

        No idea. It's certainly unique. Instantly reminds me of fond memories back at my Nan's farm from when I was a kid. So it smells like reminiscing to me.

  • bargainhuntaa on 16/07/2022 - 20:59

    Hi OP. Are you in a prison by any chance? High usage of soap might happen in there if it keeps slipping and falling.

  • BinnyC on 16/07/2022 - 21:45
    +2

    The best tip to have your soap last longer is to rub it on the body when the body is wet but you are not under running water.

  • ribze1 on 16/07/2022 - 22:23

    Weeks

  • mrnacho on 16/07/2022 - 23:12
    +1

    Stopped buying soap thanks to Tyler Durden

  • lew380 on 17/07/2022 - 00:06
    -2

    I use soap when i need it, most days when im working, i have a job where i can be exposed to extreme heat and humidity and then need a good wash with soap, otherwise just plain old water is just fine for an office day wash. Makes the bars last a lot longer.

  • the Unforgiven on 17/07/2022 - 01:13

    I remember a few decades ago, a bar of soap used to last me a year

    • bobbified on 18/07/2022 - 16:17

      Were you showering once each year?

      I think the manufacturers worked out that if they make soap that lasts too long, they won't be selling very many! lol

      • the Unforgiven on 18/07/2022 - 18:23

        Palmolive did work out that if the soap lasts too long they don't make much money. I rang them up once to ask them a question about their soap & I got chatting to the lady, as I usually do, and I told her that a bar of soap lasts a year. And the same brand & variety of soap does not last a year; the last time I checked it was bars to a year, but that was a decade ago I think. Now I can't bathe that regular due to something; once this year it was no bath for 64 days; and no, I didn't stink. I also use goats milk soap on the mits, as it stops the ends from splitting; and that really f*****g hurts. It is worse than getting a knife and cutting the tips of your fingers; massive big paper cut

        Once I took 2 baths in 15 years, but that's another story

  • Munki on 17/07/2022 - 01:22

    Triple milled bar soap only for me. Can't go back to bath wash.

  • john_conner on 17/07/2022 - 08:48
    +1

    Main reason why I use liquid soap is that it doesn’t result in soap scum building up in shower

  • skittlebrau on 17/07/2022 - 09:02
    +1

    I wash myself with a rag on a stick.

  • Poor Ass on 17/07/2022 - 11:03
    +1

    Korean public bathroom soap on a stick for communal use hahaha

    • Carmen Sandiego on 18/07/2022 - 08:38

      That's the reason why I bought hand sanitizer in 2011 :P

      • Poor Ass on 18/07/2022 - 09:03

        and you're still using the same bottle hahaha

        • Carmen Sandiego on 18/07/2022 - 09:32

          Yes :P

          I did "upgrade" to paper soaps but post Korea, no reason to use it

  • Ciderfizz44 on 17/07/2022 - 11:40

    Is this including the odd drop n shave?

  • serpserpserp on 17/07/2022 - 12:24
    +1

    Soap?

  • Morphio25 on 17/07/2022 - 13:02

    I use Dove soap. Mostly I just get them for 99c each at the Reject Shop. Each bar lasts about a week or so.

    I'm probably overpaying but I don't care - I'm clean!

  • Vote for Pedro on 17/07/2022 - 13:29
    +4

    Plot twist: slav, trying2save and all these new users (soon to be disableuser) are just scotty trying to drive user engagement on OzB.

  • ameyas7 on 17/07/2022 - 18:41
    +1

    Perhaps read this article on benefits of bathing without soap. I haven't tried going soap-free personally, but I was advised to change to pH neutral soap or consider minimizing usage by a skin specialist couple of years ago (not here in Australia and also it was pre-covid times). I was shocked to see how the marketing industry has lead our society to believe its more hygienic to use soap and other cosmetic products in general when most average soaps can potentially upset pH balance of skin and kill beneficial microbes.
    Having said that please continue to use soap especially when it comes to taking precautionary measure against Covid-19 etc as it still helps to remove bacteria and reduce the spread.

    • [Deactivated] on 18/07/2022 - 07:11

      It's ok for some, not for others. Not everyone's skin/hair "balances out" like they claim. I tried not using soap but I couldn't stand the oily feeling. I did go without shampoo for a few months and that was mostly ok as long I didn't scratch because I began to have a waxy build up like babies get on their scalp, which made me scratch more, until my scalp was on fire - two days with shampoo again and it disappeared.

      • ameyas7 on 18/07/2022 - 09:19

        Thanks for sharing your experience. Ye I think it's not that easy to give up something which we have been accustomed to for so many years and perhaps we might have already done considerable amount of damage to our skin in how it would naturally balance out things otherwise. For me it was hard to even imagine going soap free. But at the same time I feel this maybe the key reason why most baby products do not contain such harmful chemicals. Unfortunately, I feel large portion of society is still unaware of these side effects otherwise more people would be going soap free than buying average products that do more harm than good.
        And of course with covid, the role of soap has become even more crucial to stop the spread so not recommended to give up in the current circumstances.

  • [Deactivated] on 17/07/2022 - 19:18

    I don't use soap. Water is fine.

    • UFO on 17/07/2022 - 20:46
      +1

      Only way to get dirty oily skin clean is with a soap product…. water is not fine ;).

  • UFO on 17/07/2022 - 20:21
    +1

    It used to creep me out seeing another person's hair on the soap when I was young.

    We now use body soap with a plunger (Dove) and have been doing so for years. Whole family loves it…. and no pubes!!

    • [Deactivated] on 17/07/2022 - 20:30
      +1

      Lol. At my household everyone has their own personal soap with a different rack. I guess we are weird!

  • [Deactivated] on 17/07/2022 - 20:30

    Bar Soap Queens rise!

  • DonWilson on 17/07/2022 - 21:42
    +3

    I use soap twice a day in the shower. Just me. Takes about 6 months to go through a single bar.

    You keep it dry as best you can. Rub it on your wet hands to build a lather. Put it out of the water. Rub down your body. About three of those per shower covers the whole body.

    I have to assume the absolutely insane timeline in the OP is due to just keeping it constantly wet and rubbing it all over your body casually multiple times, maybe also biting off chunks and eating them then burping out soap bubbles.

    • [Deactivated] on 18/07/2022 - 07:04

      Some people have oily skin. And there are different soaps. e.g. Many have the glycerine removed so the bar eats away much faster than say a bar of expensive Pears will (which I can't use because for some reason it sets my skin on fire). I buy the cheapest apricot coloured one from Aldi.

      I have oily skin so I have to lather up at least twice, with a HOT water rinse between, to get rid of the oily feeling.

      I think manufacturers must coat soap with something too, to increase shelf life… because once I wet a bar of soap, if it's unused just a couple of weeks later, it STINKS… it gets an awful "off" smell. So like your generalisation, I could equally make the generalisation that I don't know how you could tolerate using soap that's more than a month old, and if you can, you might have a dead rat up your nose and people might be calling you 'old stinky' behind your back for not using more of it. ;-D

      • DonWilson on 31/07/2022 - 18:32

        Hey so it seems like you've never been able to keep your soap dry. Understandably, every built in soap holder is terrible, both at the sink sink and in the shower.

        If your soap gets to stinking it's because it got wet/steamed and developed that soft outer layer it develops when that happens. That then hardens/cracks as it's drying and doesn't smell great.

        The secret is properly keeping the soap mostly dry. This is much easier if you do baths instead of showers because showers are just built to keep the soap wet unless you take it outside the enclosed shower area. I was lucky enough to have a shower with a window up top in my early 20s and no built in soap dish. So I put it up there. This is how I discovered how effective keeping the soap mostly dry is.

        Seriously. Give it a shot. Find somewhere to keep your soap totally out of the wet/steam. For showers generally somewhere about or above level with the shower head that doesn't get a full bath of steam. When you take the soap out be generally out of the stream of water. Run the soap through your hands once or twice and replace the soap. Then foam up the residue in your hands - it creates a tonne in spite of there being (profanity) all soap on your hands. Soap yourself down before stepping back into the water. 2-4 soap ups will cover your entire body, even the oiliest and fattest of people (I've been BMI > 35 and a day of not shampooing means my hair looks like I was in Alien Resurrection).

        • [Deactivated] on 31/07/2022 - 22:38

          I was lucky enough to have a shower with a window up top in my early 20s and no built in soap dish. So I put it up there. This is how I discovered how effective keeping the soap mostly dry is.

          Hm, interesting.

          and a day of not shampooing means my hair looks like I was in Alien Resurrection

          Yeah when I didn't use shampoo for a few months I had to run hot water through my hair and rub as if I were still using shampoo in my daily shower. Otherwise it looked wild (looked uncombed), oily, and my scalp itched. And the comb I'd use after showering built up with oil between its teeth. The hair itself felt "heavier", but in the end the itching scalp made me use shampoo again.

  • [Deactivated] on 18/07/2022 - 06:50

    5 days is about right. Many soaps have the glycerine removed so they disappear pretty fast.

  • meowsers on 18/07/2022 - 08:08

    The only place I've used a bar of soap is in hotels where you don't want your feet to touch the ground uncovered. Tiny square of soap in a grungy shower cubicle. Shudders

  • voiletmay on 18/07/2022 - 09:17

    Months and months. I went through a stage of buying handmade soap from markets to support soapmakers, but as I only use two bars of soap a year, I was soon overun with handmade soap (and years before I tried making soap myself from scratch and that produced even more soap that took forever to use up).

    Really don't understand how it gets used it LOL!! No matter how often I use it, seems to stay the same.

  • shaybisc on 18/07/2022 - 11:15

    All I know is that the home made soap bars I get from a friend last at least 4 times as long as the store bought ones.

  • jonagrah on 18/07/2022 - 11:57

    Don't use bars of soap.

    I use Sukin Signature Botanical Body Wash or Sukin For Men Body Wash.

    • Hangryuman on 18/07/2022 - 13:21
      +2

      you shouldn't be doing that while anyone's looking

      • JayParker on 18/07/2022 - 15:51

        Can I pay to watch?

  • Hangryuman on 18/07/2022 - 13:19

    I haven't counted recently - but I used to use the cheapest supermarket bath soap which came in pack of 4-6 (I forget)

    I previously worked out that my annual cost of that soap was about $4 - per YEAR ! - so that's way cheap.

    by comparison I've started using soft soap (since we got a neat stick-on shower wall dispenser) I worked out cost 4x as much - OMG $16 per year !

    I found the soft soap didn't leave my skin dry and itchy after a hot shower - and using an East Asian shower cloth (mesh ?nylon - about 70cm long so you can scrub your back by holding it behind you with both hands) it works well for my whole body with two pumps - meh 2x10cc ?

    the other day I got out a Pears translucent soap - which is much more expensive, and seems to almost dissolve as I use it - so y'know if you can afford it, you can afford to see it slip through your fingers - I also read that Pears soap used to be lovely natural stuff and smelled nice - and that they changed the main ingredient to something a lot cheaper which smells a bit nasty - so yeah nah about that - https://greyhares.org/the-great-pears-soap-disaster/

    and 'lasts half the time [compared to] the original soap' - https://www.makeupsavvy.co.uk/2010/07/pears-soap-going-down-…

    so cheap soap used to cost me $4 per year - I'm guessing expensive soap could cost 10x that - omigord maybe like even $40 per year !

  • sssx on 18/07/2022 - 14:23
    +1

    Should've asked how many showers you get out of a bar of soap.
    Some people shower once a day, some twice.
    Some bars are shared by multiple people, some not.

    100g Dove soap gets me 11-15 showers.

  • Richardc on 18/07/2022 - 20:16

    I use sulfur soap on my toes, arms and back, last few months.

  • BargainDemon on 18/07/2022 - 23:44

    Tips if you want your soap bar last longer is to keep it dry when not in use, get yourself a soap box, that small plastic box with holes at the bottom, and keep your soap closed when not in use.

  • Danger on 19/07/2022 - 07:46

    You need to change your soap case to have better water drainage.

  • abuch47 on 19/07/2022 - 10:13

    Bars of soap dry my skin out real bad, body wash does as well but not as bad and a specific face wash is the mildest.

    Are there soap bars that are very gentle on the skin?

  • [Deactivated] on 19/07/2022 - 14:32

    Is this normal or not?

    No, it's abnormal.

  • Amazingly on 20/07/2022 - 21:05

    We (couple) are using bar soap for face and hair only for the past 2 years.

    Got rid of 3 plastic bottles. Shampoo/conditioner/face wash.
    Now just one liquid body soap bottle.

    Buy from a soap supplier in Tassie. Buy $75 worth (120g x 10 bars and free delivery) and that lasts us 7 months.

    Started buying their shampoo bar soap but found their face bar soap is cheaper and just as good.

    Not 100% sure if this is cheaper than shampoo/conditioner/face wash but less items to buy, less plastic and great for face/hair.

  • AlienC on 26/07/2022 - 02:09
    -1

    I don't use soap I use diluted dish soap.. It lasts longer.. Just put few drops in a 1.25L of hot water.. You are as clean as your dishes.

    • The Alphanumeric on 03/05/2023 - 01:08

      What? Are you made of ceramic too?

      • AlienC on 03/05/2023 - 12:43
        -1

        I'm dish washer friendly

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