The trend these days is away from having a bar of soap in your shower or on your bathroom sink, and more toward a bottle of liquid soap or shower gel. Younger people see a communal bar of soap as dirty, with an ick factor of imagining other people touching it. However, soap in a solid bar is more environmentally-friendly, less expensive, and lasts longer. Plenty of liquid soap users don't think about any of these factors because using liquid soap out of a pump bottle is just what's done in the modern world.
Dan Kois will defend bar soap until the end. He writes about the history of soap, including his personal history with Irish Spring, and the advantages of a simple bar in your bathroom. In preparing for this extensive essay, he even engaged a microbiology lab in testing the bacteria on soap and the poufs people use with liquid soap. Read all about the simple bar of soap and why we should be bringing it back at Slate. Here's an alternative link if that one doesn't work.
(Image credit: Dwight Burdette)
