What this is
WHY
I just wanted to figure out what the best bar was.
The shower aisle is bigger than it needs to be and most of it underwhelms. The expensive end is worse: a bar of soap with a farm behind it is still a bar of soap, and it lathers no better for £14.
So the project is straightforward. Buy a bar. Use the bar. Score it. Write up what survived. Move to the next one.
DIRECTIONS FOR USE
- Buy the bar at the price a normal person would pay for it.
- Use it until it's gone. Same shower, same skin, same nose.
- Fill in the same daily form every morning, half asleep.
- Score it out of ten on lather, scent, value, lasts and skin.
- Write it up dry. Put it on the shelf next to everything else.
Same method every time is the whole point. It's what lets you compare a £5.99 Palmolive with a £14 boutique bar and get a straight answer.
WHAT HAPPENS TO THE SPARES
A lot of bars come in multipacks. One bar is enough to score; the rest sit in the cupboard doing nothing. So the spares get donated, and there's a running list of where they end up.
RECENT BARS PASSED ON
WHAT THE SQUAD GETS
Your own lather year. Same five axes, same daily prompt, your own running record.
Bars the man hasn't met yet. Propose them. Score them. They join the main shelf.
The bar in the drawer you'll never use. Log it. It goes somewhere it's needed.
AN HONEST ASIDE
Structure is the hard bit. For some people the showering itself is the climb, not the soap.
If that's you, the squad might be worth a look. A daily prompt, one small thing to log, a few other people doing the same thing on the same morning. Nobody marking your card. Just a quiet ledger, decent soap, and company.
Join the squad →TYPICAL VALUES
| MEASURE | TO DATE |
|---|---|
| Bars reviewed | 15 |
| Bars used | 80 |
| Donated by the man | 2 |
| Donated by the squad | 0 |
| Bottles avoided* | 112 |
* Rough maths: each bar used replaces about 1.4 plastic shower-gel bottles.