IN A RIGHT LATHER

I've always liked soap.

As a kid its ability to create ice-cream using a sponge in the bath was enough to get me hooked. I realised that if you let the bar slip out of your hand that was that. Chances of finding it under the thick carpet of Matey bubblebath were nill. Even Billy Blastoff Scuba couldn't get it back!

My fave soap as a kid was Imperial Leather bu Cussons I think. You can still get it and it hasn't changed at all. Even the little wedge-ended box is still the same. The bar had a pleasant custardy tinge and it smelt fab. I appreciated the shard edges, which allowed a firm grip whilst making bird's dream topping at bath-time.

I only recently worked out that the gold label that is mysteriously stuck in the middle of the bar is actually a stand. Yes, as the bar dissolves the label continues to stick out and hold the bar up off the wet sink surface and keeping it dry! How cool is that! Cusson's Tech!

Another soap in my folk's household was Pears. Shaped like a big sweet it had a sort of strong cinnamony, herby smell. Very distinct and classy I suppose. It was marketed as almost Victorian or olde-worlde. Ye olde bar of soap type of thing with a tin bath a glowing fire. Its round edges made it hard to grip and the smell was too much after a while!

There were other soap brands around: Knight's Castile, which was for Knights in their castle baths [presumably once they'd taken their armour off], Lifebuoy for Olympic swimmers, Shield for Avengers, Camay for Greek Goddesses along with Lux and Wright's Coal Tar Soap for anyone who could stand the thought of rubbing coal tar allover. I seemed to recall that it reeked too!

there were some funky soaps too that my older Sister had. Biba springs to mind. Maybe even Yardley. They had floral psychedelic boxes for the hippy in you.

Two other soap types have popped into my head too: massive bars of kitchen soap for giants like huge green bricks - God knows how you held them - and that icon of the medallion man decade, soap on a rope. Cars, space capsules, animals - they all got roped into having a shower with hirsute catalogue models and my older brothers too! the rope eventually took on the appearance of nuclear waste. Yuk!

I have a very wispy memory of soap in a can too but it's so far back that the bubble's won't form. Silly soap maybe?

Anyways, my soap of choice these days - seeing as I'm washing my mitts every half hour - is Nivea simply because its smells nice.

Do you have soapy memories?