“There is nothing more delicious than a brand-new bar of soap coming out of the package,” a marketing director for Colgate-Palmolive tells Dan Kois, adding that “we’re passionate about bar” and “bar soap is still in the conversation.” But Kois deserves a little credit for that last remark. In his latest for Slate, Kois sketches a history of personal bathing and charts the rise of liquid body wash against his decades-long affection for bars of Irish Spring, with stops at a bacteria lab and a memorable moment from Friends about soap sharing. As a certain ’90s ad campaign might say, “You’ll like it, too.”
What will I do if my trusty Irish Spring goes the way of 19th-century patent medicines? It seems to be a haunting possibility. So I set out to learn everything I could about bars of soap and the modern body washes threatening to eliminate them. My adventure led me to the 19th-century birth of American cleanliness, to the woman in charge of the Irish Spring account at Colgate-Palmolive, to a particularly evil and destructive episode of Friends, and to a bacteriological laboratory where scientists-for-hire made a stunning discovery about soap I brought from my bathroom. I wanted to know if I was as obsolete as my favorite bath product. What I found is that our prejudices about what we keep in the shower—about what keeps us clean—go far deeper than the skin we scrub.
More picks by Dan Kois
How America Got Its Baby Back, Baby Back, Baby Back
“Chili’s was once a relic of the ’90s. Then it blew past its competitors—and conquered casual American dining. In its Texas test kitchen, I saw how.”
The Last Days of the Rainbow Warrior
“In 1985, a group of spies had a target—and a plan. It turned into one of the most sensationally botched crimes of the century.”
Totally Cooked
“We picked the 25 most important recipes of the past century. Then I spent one month cooking every single one. I was not prepared.”
