Yes, I still use a bar of soap.
Liquid soap, in the shower, just doesn’t cut it…I’ve still not moved on to sponges or other soft, scrubby things that swish over my body creating lots of bubbles and soapy foam.
I’m quite content with old fashioned,
hard soap!
My preferred brand is Yardley, particularly Lavender. My mother was a Yardley gal too and in addition to the lavender soap she used lavender toilet water and always had lavender bushes in her gardens.
My memories of growing up are forever re-awakened when I reach for the bar in my shower or on my sink, first thing in the morning and last thing at night.
The dollar store sells it in its neat, old fashioned, cardboard boxes. Gone is the tissue paper that used to wrap the bars but the box is still here.
I store them in the bathroom cupboard above the loo…
…and therein lies the problem when we need to replace the shower bar!
I usually notice the soap is getting perilously close to wafer thin when I am already in the shower, drenched, and reaching towards the soap dish.
It’s too dangerous (for any age) to wet-foot-it across the tiled bathroom floor and snatch a new bar, so I make a mental note, which is immediately forgotten as soon as the towel is wrapped, deodorant rolled and dressing commenced.
So then, when does the tiny morsel of soap get replaced?
Who of us thinks ahead to exchange the barely visible remains with a brand new bar, before stepping in the shower the following morning?
No-one in our house!
The paper thin sliver of soap sits in its dish and waits and waits and waits while slowly dissolving until it is barely distinguishable from the cream soap dish upon which it sits.
“What did you use for soap this morning?” I ask Hubs.
“Shampoo!”
Oh yes, of course he did!
Quite often I’ve desperately stepped carefully from the stall, soap sliver in hand, scooted across the floor on the bath mat, reached for a new bar, unboxed it and tossed sliver and box away before scooting back to the shower.
This past week it became a battle of wills…
…just one more shower, I thought.
…just one more shower (Hubs the cheating shampoo user) obviously thought too.
Until finally I was pleasantly surprised.
Somewhere after lunch and before tea Hubs replaced the bar.
He was pretty proud of himself!
Between sips of coffee and bites of dunked digestive, he announced,
“I put a new lavender soap in the shower.”
“Oh yay!” I said between swallows, “what jogged your memory?”
“I was doing kitty litter…”
Say no more.
Maybe I should position a walking frame within easy reach to save either of us taking a nasty fall…
but the real truth is not the fear of falling, it’s the interruption of a warm, refreshing shower that turns us into procrastinators who will whizz a barely foaming slice of soap quickly around and be done!
Perhaps I should keep a water proof cupboard in the shower with refills at the ready just an arm’s length away…
Or put a sticky note reminder on the shower door…
Oh save me from tiny bits of soap…
Well hello there! My name is Vivienne McNeny.
I am an empty nester exploring life as a Boomer…you could say I'm happily Boomering along!
As a homeschooling Mum I have finally quit the job of role model and mentor to my four children. I do what I want to do, eat when I feel like it, enjoy life with my blue eyed cowboy and clean my house once a month or so whether it needs it or not!
In true English form I write about the emergence of my true identity now that I can no longer hide behind my children as their Mum.
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