Bar Soap vs Liquid Soap

Having a conversation with the misses, we got on the topic of bar soap vs liquid soap. My wife is an avid liquid soap user because that is how she was raised. I've utilized both liquid and bar soap and figure soap is soap. The conversation went to how much touching/contact goes with a bar of soap compared to the top of a dispenser and we ended up perplexed.

Bar soap has been used for quite a long time and "it works".  Liquid soap seems to be a newer thing but that doesn't necessarily mean it is any better.

Who can help explain the differences an similarities of soap to this poor fool?

I'm secretly hoping I can make a good argument for switching to locally produced bar soaps.

oh dear. in this house it is an ongoing debate.
I like bar soap because of the inherent lower costs in transport and no need for plastic bottles/pumps/etc. I also think that you have less risk of contamination touching a bar of soap than a dispenser.
My beloved family find bar soap icky, yucky and messy. To be fair, even with a bar soap drainer, there is often "gunk" that needs to be cleaned up.
Our solution is that in the shower we use a good bar soap and the bathroom sink has a liquid soap in a foaming dispenser (which helps us stretch it much farther). If it were just me I'd probably use the same homemade lye soap for everything from hair to dishes to laundry, but ... diplomacy.

(i can't help remarking, on a slightly different note, that on my last few trips up to the US I have been shocked at the lack of bar soap variety for bathing in big-box stores. There were maybe 3 brands, compared to all the great ones I remember. It's all about the shower gel now, apparently. thank goodness for artisan stuff!)

I make liquid soap from bar soap. 32 ounce container of liquid soap. When empty, shave a bar of soap and put pieces into the bottle with warm water and let it melt. Makes perfect liquid soap and lasts much, much longer than the bar of soap would have.
One bar of soap is too much for one 32 ounce bottle, so as it thickens I have to add more water to keep it liquid enough for the pump to work. I think liquid soap is just a tricky way to get people to pay way too much for soap.

As I understand it, bar soap might not be older. Castille soap is made from olive oil and potash, and it takes a liquid form. Potash is much easier to obtain than lye, as it comes from wood ash.

I don’t use soap typically except on my hands but sometimes wash off with an herbal/medicinal infusion of some sort if I feel the need, which is liquid but homemade and not packaged. Another source of “soap” is the wild soapwort, which grows on river edges, disturbed habitats, & roadsides. They can be used like bar soap—rubbed until they start to release their soap-filled juices and then used for washing. You probably have seen them around—big white five-petalled flowers, opposite leaves with conspicuous veins.

Hi, It seems that bar soaps do harbor some bacteria. In one study all 32 bars tester grew 2-5 different genera of micro organisms (https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/17051871/).

But the good thing is that it doesn't seem to matter. In an older study from 1988 they found that none of the 16 test subject had detectable levels of either Escherichia coli nor Pseudomonas aeruginosa, after washing with soaps that had had that added to them (https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC2249330/). Similar results in an earlier study by Bannan & Judge in 1965. These are old studies, but maybe they will be persuasive?

Soap, is designed to lift the dirt of your hands anyway. But I do personally keep a bar for showering and liquid for washing my hands after the toilet. Now that I think about it, it's mostly to make guests feel welcome, because not everyone wants to use wet soap bars.

M Ljin wrote:Another source of “soap” is the wild soapwort, which grows on river edges, disturbed habitats, & roadsides. They can be used like bar soap—rubbed until they start to release their soap-filled juices and then used for washing. You probably have seen them around—big white five-petalled flowers, opposite leaves with conspicuous veins.

This sounds interesting. Haven't heard about soapwort before. Quickly read that parts of the plant is usually boiled to get "sopa water".

We're another household that has him and her soaps: he likes the liquid soap, whereas I think as Teresa says that you're paying for mostly packaging and water, so use the bar soap for hand washing. We are at least able to refill our bottle from our own bulk dispenser in our shop (available for customers too). We also use the bar soap in the bath. At the moment we are going through all the nice soap bars gifted to us over the years...I think we'll not need to buy one for a long time yet!

We also have his & hers. I have allergies to so many things in commercial soaps, that I've just given up. Bar soaps travel better, which is very important, when dealing with allergies. I take my own tiny bar of soap, whenever we go anywhere, so I won't have to use what is available in public bathrooms or those of friends & family. I also prefer to not have all the bottles, packaging, & shipping, so my soap is either made by me or a local friend, who also makes soaps that'd are friendly to me. If I make it, I'm using mostly fats that I've rendered from scraps from food we processed, but not always entirely. I've not made my own lye - yet.

He uses what he uses for his own reasons...