P&G sells soap brands to Unilever

[danemodsandy]

Ivory:

FEH!

That stuff will forever remind me of one of my grandmothers - and not the nice one, either.

To this day, the smell of Ivory evokes a sense of dread.

 

[circlew]

Hey Sandy, the Lux I see advertised online is the 3.2 oz. size, in cases of 72 bars. The Betty Mills Co. is just one of the places listing it. This is what is called "hotel size" bars.

Otherwise, it seems that larger bars are imported from the Far East, as it appears to be a popular brand there.

Cleaning, Sanitary & Medical Supplies - Betty Mills

Get Double Markdown® Savings, Speedy Delivery, plus Valuable Rewards.

www.bettymills.com

 

[danemodsandy]

Tom:

Thanks for the link!

I wish there was a way to get hold of one bar for testing, to see if the fragrance and lathering are what I remember. $44.46 for a case is not a bad price at all, but if it was not the Lux I remember, then it's an expensive experiment.

The 3.2 ounce "hotel" size is becoming more prevalent; Palmolive comes only in that size now. I still use it, but I miss the 4 ounce bar, which lasted longer.

 

[andic29]

I didn't know that palmolive came in a bar, much less as anything other than dish liquid :-/

The Camay and Lux... are they drying to the skin?

 

[askolover]

Palmolive

Green soap is sold at our local Dollar Tree for $1! I myself prefer Safegard in the shower. Vermont country store sells Cashmere Bouquet, Lifebuoy, Yardley, and Camay.

The Best of Vermont from The Vermont Country Store to your door!

The Vermont Country Store is proud to offer a great selection of high-quality and hard-to-find merchandise. Explore our general store today.

www.vermontcountrystore.com

 

[Ultramatic]

 

 

Growing up, we always used Camey, Cashmere Bouquet and Ivory. Early '80's we went to Zest, Irish Spring, Tone and Caress. I was allergic to Caress though.  For the Christmas season, we always (and still do) switch over to Maja, a bar soap imported from Spain. These days it's usually Yardley's of London, Dove and the occasional triple-milled soap from Marshalls. I use shower gels once in awhile. Spouse is strictly a shower gel guy. 

 

[danemodsandy]

Andi:

Palmolive was a bar soap for decades (it was introduced in 1898) before the name was put on dish detergent. It was one of the leading soaps in the category known as "toilet soap," meaning soap people bathed with and washed hands and faces with. Toilet soaps were specifically formulated to be non-drying. The Palmolive name originally signified that the soap had both palm and olive oils in it. That has not been the case for a long, long time, but the name continues.

Lux was one of the most famous toilet soaps, advertised by movie stars as a "beauty soap" capable of improving the complexion by cleansing the skin and moisturizing it. Palmolive claimed this too, as did Camay.

I have used Palmolive since I was a kid (it's easy to get at Dollar Tree as mentioned upthread), and Lux too until it was discontinued for retail sale. Both make me feel cleaner than any other soap.

Here's the Palmolive jingle that I remember as a very small kid:

"You want a beauty soap for a beauty bath
You want a beauty soap for a beauty bath
You want Palmolive Soap for a beauty bath
You want Pal-mol-ive Soap for your beauty bath!
You'll love it's fragrance for daintiness
You'll love it's mildness for loveliness
You'll love it's purity for gentleness
You'll love Pal-mol-ive Bath Size for thriftiness!"

You can see a 1951 Palmolive commercial using this jingle at the link:

http://https//www.youtube.com/watch?v=OLrHX3-i7wc

 

[frigilux]

Cashmere Bouquet: The tiny-bar soap of every inexpensive motel room I stayed in as a kid. Liked the scents of Zest and Camay. Didn't care for Dove at all, but the stylized shape of the bar was cool.[this post was last edited: 12/24/2014-03:00]

 

[mrboilwash]

Sorry for the long post and no intention to turn this thread into a shower gel vs. soap thread, but I`m amazed at how popular soap still is on the other side of the pond.

First of all I think the reason most people over here don`t like real soap anymore is because most of us have to deal with hard water and hard water and soap don`t work well together. Takes only one sole shower with soap until my bathtub needs to be srubbed.
With shower gel I get away with weekly cleaning intervals of the tub. Also when using soap if I wouldn`t lather up and rinse in small batches I`d find myself covered in nasty soapscum.
With shower gel I can turn off the water, lather up head to toe and rinse clean at once.

There`s no doubt about that soap is a way more natural option than man made surfactants as found in shower gel, but there`s also one major disadvantage of soap, its pH is rather high thus not ideal for the skin.
You don`t need to be a dermatologist to understand the negative effects of free alkali to the human skin. While normal healthy skin can cope well with soap it can be devastating for dry sensitive skin. Every hairdresser should be able to explain.
Just think about it this way, how could something caustic enough to burn your eyes be gentle on your skin ?
Man made surfactants on the other hand can be balanced to any desired pH level without loosing their surfactancy. Typically a shower gel is slightly sour (pH 5.5) to match the natural pH of "untreated" human skin.
Dishwashing liquid are often found in the alkaline range to boost cleaning power.

@ Sudsmaster please take my friendly advice and stop using Clorox Greenworks for your body. I checked the MSDS and just as I expected found out the pH is slighty alkaline (7.5-8.5). It`s nothing to be concerned about, but any shower gel would be better suited for a gentle body care.

 

[arbilab]

There's chemistry to explain why bar soaps tend to deposit themselves on bathroom surfaces (and your skin as well) but my understanding of it is only adequate to explain it to me, not to expound upon it. Has to do with why bar soap feels slippery with softened water no matter how much you rinse.

Soap and its actions are far more complex than most appreciate. Remember, soap was invented when cavemen found that the fat dripping off cooked meat into ashes plus water tended to remove soil. The fat and ash chemistries have become a great deal more refined but bar soap at its core is little different than it was when first discovered.

Bodywashes are detergents, almost nothing in common with 'soap' other than a degree of surfactancy. Like them if you like them, but they are not for everybody. Detergent would make my genetically-altered skin a fire hazard fer chrissake. I wash my hands with detergent (dish liquid) after making hamburger patties. But only to the point it removes the GROSS grease. Otherwise, see 'fire hazard' above. And cracked cuticles, etc. IOW, there is not 'one thing better' for everyone.

 

[andic29]

Wow Sandy, you sure do know your soap! Im going to have to pick up a bar to give it a spin. I love trying new soaps.

A few years back, my grandparents would purchase big bars of cashmere bouquet from the commissary. When one of my smaller cousins would come to stay, thats what he would have to use. Apparently it was great for his eczema.

As far as bodywash vs. soap, I've used both and definately prefer soap. Bodywash just doesn't make me feel clean. My dailey driver is either the vetiver and cardamom or the elixir of love bars from Caswell-Massey. They're French milled, smell amazing, aren't drying at all and last me a long time.

 

[danemodsandy]

Andi:

Cashmere Bouquet is also still around, but hard to find. I have a few bars in my stash. When Cashmere Bouquet was easier to get, I used to keep Palmolive in the tub's soap dish, and Cashmere Bouquet at the sink for hand washing. Cashmere Bouquet leaves hands smelling very nice.

It took a long time, but the beginning of the end for a lot of toilet soaps was the 1955 introduction of Lever Brothers' Dove, the first mass-marketed "superfatted" toilet soap, and the introduction of Armour's Dial deodorant soap in 1948.

Dove was even more of a "beauty soap" than Lux, Camay, Palmolive and Cashmere Bouquet; women were very happy with its moisturizing qualities. Dial originally contained hexachlorophene, an antibacterial agent that was banned in the '70s. Dial then switched to triclocarban, which it still uses today. The idea behind Dial was to rid the skin of bacteria whose excretions are the cause of body odor. This is considered sketchy logic from a scientific point of view, but it has sold one helluva lot of Dial.

Speaking of Cashmere Bouquet, Colgate-Palmolive used to make other Cashmere Bouquet products. There was talcum powder (still made under license by another company) and hand lotion, long discontinued.

 

[jamiel]

I think that Dove was even more revolutionary than you've mentioned here; in that although it was definitely superfatted, I don't think it was primarily saponified oil (i.e. soap)...it was primarily detergents (as it is now). Lever cornered the market for beauty bar soaps at the time; and P&G/CP/Armour weren't able to compete. P&G used their detergent technology for Zest (which was unique at the time--Safeguard competed more with Dial). You later had some hybrid products (Phase III, Lever 2000) later which used the building-blocks of Dove and added deodorant. P&G tried to compete in the very early 80s with a bar product called Monchel (test marketed in Kansas City) until they came up with the Olay branding which has persisted.

 

[iej]

Over here, bar soap really doesn't occupy much more than a small niche on a shelf these days.
I occasionally use Dove, as I find it can be good if I've oily skin, but normally I use fairly environmentally friendly products.

The packaging issue is a big one, I can't understand why more producers can't simply sell refillable packs like Ecover.

 

[ronhic]

Give me Pears Transparent

...any time over any other bar soap.

 

It's one of the few that washes truly clean, not leaving a 'soapy' film on the skin and is mildly fragranced without any overtly floral notes.

 

It's a product that was often used on babies given it was quite neutral and hypoallergenic (original formula) and to this day reminds me of my little sister being bathed as a baby. They have, unfortunately, changed the formula twice since 2009 with the subsequent ingredient list being significantly less 'natural' than that used for the 202 years until 2009. Probably in the name of cost savings for at around $1.50 per bar, it is far from a 'cheap' soap.

 

Mind, even with all the changes, it's still the product I use to shower with. Nothing else comes close in my book.

Pears (soap) - Wikipedia

en.wikipedia.org

 

[jerrod6]

I am not sure the stuff we call soap over here is the same as it was.  Looking at the ingredients of the body soap I am using it contains what they call soap(sodium tallowate, sodium cocoate, sodium palm kernelate, sodium palmate) then this other stuff: water, glycerin, coconut acid, palm acid, tallow acid, palm kernel acid, vitamin E, Kiwi fruit juice however you get that, and Mango juice, so some of this may being used to adjust the Ph.

 

I tried body wash but the stuff never seems like it rinses off.  My skin feels as if it is coated in silicone or something.

 

I also use soap from a local maker a 7 streets away.  It contains coconut oil, olive oil, safflower seed oil, vegetable glycerin, propylene glycol, water, sorbitol sodium oleate, soybean protein, shea butter.  This stuff cleans well enough and my skin feels great even better is the fragrance - moroccan cedar. Love this stuff. 

 

So perhaps we are using things and calling them soap but they are not the same as they were years ago. 

 

[retropia]

In the winter, I always had problems with itchy skin. Moisturizing soaps, shower gel, glycerin soaps, nothing helped. Following a shower with a moisturizer helped, but I found that to be a bother.

On a whim, I tried Trader Joe's tea tree oil soap. It eliminated the itching, and the need for a moisturizer. It's all I use now in the shower, year round.

 

[frigilux]

I've used Lever 2000 since its 1987 debut. Initally, its antibacterial properties were advertised. That isn't mentioned these days, so perhaps there's been a change in formulation. Not sure why I've remained faithful to it; habit, I suppose. It comes in packs of 16 bars at Sam's Club.

 

[arbilab]

I liked Lever 2000 too with the exception it tended to 'melt' thus didn't last long.

 

[alr2903]

Zest..

.

On January 4, 2011, it was announced that Procter and Gamble had sold the brand to High Ridge Brands Co.

 From Wiki