Liquid soaps - the sort that come in plastic bottles with pump dispensers - are quite probably the biggest marketing con of the last ten years or so. There was a period - about 3 or 4 years ago - when Mrs Stan was enamoured with the things and our kitchen and bathroom sink were cluttered with liquid soaps.
Each bottle of liquid soap cost two or three quid. The pump dispenser encourages you to always use more than you really need and the bottle doesn't last much more than a week with a family of four. That's assuming that the pump dispenser works anyway. Half the time they don't - you pump and pump as the gunky mess dribbles out reluctantly then pump so hard the bottle slips on the wet porcelain and goes flying across the bathroom. When you chuck it away - after a week or two - you're chucking away a large lump of plastic complete with a pump dispenser and probably half an inch of gunk in the bottom.
Compare that to your average twin pack of Imperial Leather. It costs about a quid and will last you for two to three months. When it gets low you just get a new bar and mould the remnants of the old bar into the new bar. It never gets wasted and the rubbish from the new bar consists of a tiny scrap of paper.
Liquid soaps are wasteful, expensive and environmentally unfriendly.
I hate them.
1 comment:
I'm partially with you on this one Mr Stan.
At FatBigot Towers liquid soap is used in the kitchen because it is more efficient for washing away dangerous residues from handling meat, particularly chicken and pork. A bar of soap could be used but you can leave some of the meaty nastiness on the bar. It's only a small risk but a risk nonetheless. Of course placing a hand covered with chicken juice on the pumping device of a liquid soap dispenser can leave a potentially dangerous deposit, but that can be avoided by using a wrist or part of the hand that is not contaminated.
The bath and shower, however, are a different kettle of ballgame. They need proper soap. As in Fortress Stan, Imperial Leather is the soap of choice here.
I agree entirely about the wastefulness of liquid soap both in terms of the plastic container and the bit at the bottom that is never sucked up by the pump.
(Will reply to your comment at my place in the next day or so.)
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