Best kitchen cleaning product i've used....

Toxic_Lemon

We sometimes had Cussons Imperial Leather and I used to try to lather it up and put it on my face like they did in the adverts, and trying not to displace the label. I can remember the advert with the family on the private jet, bathing with it.

Molly41

Old style Pears was the memory of my childhood. It changed about 15 years ago. Having said that though I put a bar of Pears soap in each of my Operation Christmas Child Shoebox as I thought it might be appreciated.

Justamum

Toxic_Lemon wrote: »

I'm very against soap as it's made using acid and is so damaging to the skin, etc, etc. I don't use anything with soap or SLS.

Soap isn't damaging to the skin, and it's perfectly environmentally friendly. What do you wash with if you don't use soap?

Justamum

Nicepeach wrote: »

My Nan always had a bar of Camay soap too but only for ladies to use - she said ALL the old film stars used that one & that's what made their skin so beautiful!

The power of advertising hey?

Justamum

dandy-candy wrote: »

It was fine on my hands, although i'm religious about moisturising after washin up anyway!

I'm a bit slack about moisturising

Karb

Nicepeach, you just can't beat the smell of Wright's Coal Tar soap can you? One of my favourite childhood smells.

Lazy_Liz

Soap is made with fats or oils reacted with sodium hydroxide (an alkali not an acid) Sodium Hydroxide is unplesant and dangerous in itself but quickly breaksdown to harmless ingredients, it is often used in de-greasers and heavy duty drain cleaners. There is no sodium hydroxide left in soap, it is all reacted out.
Soap can make the skin feel dry as it removes the surface oil but it doesn't do any harm.
Liquid "soap" shampoo shower gel etc are not stricktley soap they are detergents.
I remeber wrights coaltar soap, love the smell, also green Fariy soap and carbolic soap (very strong smell) it was kept under my grannys kitchen sink for floor scrubbing and clean up of nasty spills.
We used Shield soap at home, it was the same colour as our bathroom, so seventies truquise green colour.

rosie383

Thanks for this post OP. Where my inlaws live, in Algeria, they have bars of Savon Marseille which is used for almost everything. It is brilliant for scrubbing collars and cuffs, great to remove stains from laundry, and also gentle enough to wash yourself with. It's great stuff.

TheConways

Toxic_Lemon wrote: »

I can google carbolic soap for the official details but can anyone give any more information on its environmental impact or similar? I'm very against soap as it's made using acid and is so damaging to the skin, etc, etc. I don't use anything with soap or SLS.

Soap is made from fatty acids - typically palm, or tallow - and then neutralised by a strong base and a salt to make soap. It's not an acid!

The downside of soap is that it can be very drying to the skin as you need fairly hot water to make a decent lather.

This is why liquid soaps work at lower temperatures - SLS (sodium lauryl sulphate) or SLES (sodium laureth sulphate) can be used in cold water and still lather well.

SLES is slightly better for your skin and hair as the fatty alcohol is ethoxylated first, making a longer surfactant chainlength (less of an irritant). I work for a soap-making company, and we predominantly use SLES in our shampoo formulations and laundry detergents (we don't do handsoap).

I've seen "SLS-free" brands that instead contain sodium coco sulphate - which is exactly the same! The "L" is for lauryl - which is a C-12-14 chainlength. You can get this from palm kernel oil, or coconut oil, or synthetically (petrochemical). It's just the same though!

If you have sensitive skin, use washing-up gloves when cleaning, and also keep a bottle of moisturizer handy.

[Deleted User]

When my late OH worked in the Sudan back in the 1980's he was a transport director for one of the sheiks out there and his job was to get hundreds of tonnes of peanuts shipped across the desert in large containers to the factories.He used to say that at one end of the production line peanuts went in and at the other end soap and cooking oil came out He sometimes brought some bars home when he was on leave and they looked like Camay but slightly less perfumed. It provided hundreds of jobs for locals who would otherwise have starved.He was stationed in Port Sudan but often had to cross the desert to Khartoum in a jeep with a driver It was so hot they could only cross in the late evening as during the day the temps got up to 45c.Apparently the water in the jerrycans in the back of the jeep used to boil up and they could have a cuppa with it without making a fire.He loved working out there, and really liked the Sudanese folk, but missed the family so much.He did three years with a break every three months ,and it was a hard way to make a living but the transport work in the UK was drying up so you had to go where the work was. Sometimes when he came home on leave he had to bring bags of different sorts of nuts home for analysis in England.