Remember the red Lifebuoy brick from childhood?
In a world of gooey last-a-week cream soaps and "bathing bars", few people know of or remember carbolic soaps.
Through the last century or so, carbolic soaps are credited with saving more lives from succumbing to infection than are drugs. Even now, this cheap and trusty old soap is a sanitation staple in health centers serving the poor in countries the world over.
{In the strictest sense, using a "bath powder" (grain or pulse meal mixed with herbs - cheap, healthy and biodegradable) is the finest bathing solution I've experienced, but more about this in another post.}
When it comes to soaps, I personally believe that there is no such thing as a beauty soap. The only thing a good soap can and ought to do is clean and disinfect without being harsh on your skin, or leaving semi-tested chemicals behind. As for slimy shower gels that are a pain to rinse off, I have nothing but contempt for them.
A carbolic soap meets all my bathing requirements. The soap has been around for a long time, each bar lasts a long while, it thoroughly cleans, disinfects and deodorizes, and doesn't leave my skin dried out either (but I moisturize in winters). It blasts through rashes (I have sensitive skin) and is supposedly very effective on acne. The smell is strong and aseptic, which is perfect because I want to smell clean, not like jasmine or seaweed or a tropical fruit.
There are a few other uses for the soap too. For minor scrapes and cuts, washing the spot with water and leaving on a film of carbolic soap for a while protects against infection. My grandmother used to do this for our little scrapes, and my dad tells me he used to do the same when he was a kid.
Carbolic soaps have been popular bug repellants for a while now, and in my personal experience, this is perfectly true. Commercial mosquito repellents can cause severe allergic reactions and/or respiratory problems, as they have for my mother, while a simple shower can give you a lot of relief from bugs. Apart from showering with the soap, I discovered a way to add a bug repellent booster dose. In Madras the mosquito menace is acutest in the evenings, and yesterday I had showered in the morning with carbolic but wasn't sure if the smell still lingered. So I took a dry bar of the soap and rubbed it all over exposed parts - arms, legs and feet. Yes, mosquitoes do steer clear of you!
There must be small manufacturers of the soap in various parts of the country, and among known brands, Nirma has a carbolic soap though it doesn't seem to be available in the south. I personally use "Carbolic" by Karnataka soaps & detergents. When I'm not using an herbal bath powder (and that is most of the previous year), this is the only soap I've used for almost a year now, and I simply love it.
The soap retails at 14 bucks for 150 gms and lasts a really long time. Sadly, this soap is not freely available everywhere (a situation that I find is increasingly the norm with many good, honest products), but I have often seen them in Big Bazaar.
If you live in Karnataka, you can pick the soap up in bulk at a KS&D factory outlet, and you'll get it for a couple of bucks cheaper. (While you are at KS&D, don't miss another wonderful product - Mysore detergent bar, a yellow laundry soap that is inexpensive and skin-friendly - dermatologist Dr. Thambaiah of Madras recommended yellow detergent cakes. But I just checked their site, and I don't see it listed. Another lovely product dead??)
More on the topic of toilette:
My bathing routine simply involves Carbolic soap and a scrubbing brush. For brushes, go for fibre loofahs like this one. In Tamil Nadu, you'll find these in small grocery outlets or herbal medicine stores selling at 5-10 bucks bucks a piece. Or you can go to a health & glow type outlet and throw away 50 - 100 bucks for the same stuff.
Khadi gramodyog has round idli-like loofahs for 10 bucks each, made of fragrant vetiver! But remember to soak any natural fibre brush in water for a couple of days to soften it up. It can be quite rough on the skin when new.
If you have no choice but to go plastic, these damn things make pretty bubbles, but are bloody useless as scrubbers. You are better off with these - very very cheap, no-nonsense and effective. Just be nice and try to make one last for a long long long time, so that you reduce plastic waste. Once it is shredded from use, it can still scrub tiles or your bike or car.
That's it for this post. Bye!
In a world of gooey last-a-week cream soaps and "bathing bars", few people know of or remember carbolic soaps.
Through the last century or so, carbolic soaps are credited with saving more lives from succumbing to infection than are drugs. Even now, this cheap and trusty old soap is a sanitation staple in health centers serving the poor in countries the world over.
{In the strictest sense, using a "bath powder" (grain or pulse meal mixed with herbs - cheap, healthy and biodegradable) is the finest bathing solution I've experienced, but more about this in another post.}
When it comes to soaps, I personally believe that there is no such thing as a beauty soap. The only thing a good soap can and ought to do is clean and disinfect without being harsh on your skin, or leaving semi-tested chemicals behind. As for slimy shower gels that are a pain to rinse off, I have nothing but contempt for them.
A carbolic soap meets all my bathing requirements. The soap has been around for a long time, each bar lasts a long while, it thoroughly cleans, disinfects and deodorizes, and doesn't leave my skin dried out either (but I moisturize in winters). It blasts through rashes (I have sensitive skin) and is supposedly very effective on acne. The smell is strong and aseptic, which is perfect because I want to smell clean, not like jasmine or seaweed or a tropical fruit.
There are a few other uses for the soap too. For minor scrapes and cuts, washing the spot with water and leaving on a film of carbolic soap for a while protects against infection. My grandmother used to do this for our little scrapes, and my dad tells me he used to do the same when he was a kid.
Carbolic soaps have been popular bug repellants for a while now, and in my personal experience, this is perfectly true. Commercial mosquito repellents can cause severe allergic reactions and/or respiratory problems, as they have for my mother, while a simple shower can give you a lot of relief from bugs. Apart from showering with the soap, I discovered a way to add a bug repellent booster dose. In Madras the mosquito menace is acutest in the evenings, and yesterday I had showered in the morning with carbolic but wasn't sure if the smell still lingered. So I took a dry bar of the soap and rubbed it all over exposed parts - arms, legs and feet. Yes, mosquitoes do steer clear of you!
There must be small manufacturers of the soap in various parts of the country, and among known brands, Nirma has a carbolic soap though it doesn't seem to be available in the south. I personally use "Carbolic" by Karnataka soaps & detergents. When I'm not using an herbal bath powder (and that is most of the previous year), this is the only soap I've used for almost a year now, and I simply love it.
The soap retails at 14 bucks for 150 gms and lasts a really long time. Sadly, this soap is not freely available everywhere (a situation that I find is increasingly the norm with many good, honest products), but I have often seen them in Big Bazaar.
If you live in Karnataka, you can pick the soap up in bulk at a KS&D factory outlet, and you'll get it for a couple of bucks cheaper. (While you are at KS&D, don't miss another wonderful product - Mysore detergent bar, a yellow laundry soap that is inexpensive and skin-friendly - dermatologist Dr. Thambaiah of Madras recommended yellow detergent cakes. But I just checked their site, and I don't see it listed. Another lovely product dead??)
Apart from personal use, given how these have been preferred by doctors in primary care centers around the world, a box of carbolic soaps can be a novel and very useful goodwill gift if you are looking to help a health facility that serves the poor, or a welfare-based school, or a home for children or the aged.
The carbolic soap is a wonderful product, and it would be a shame to see it die because of lack of demand.
More on the topic of toilette:
My bathing routine simply involves Carbolic soap and a scrubbing brush. For brushes, go for fibre loofahs like this one. In Tamil Nadu, you'll find these in small grocery outlets or herbal medicine stores selling at 5-10 bucks bucks a piece. Or you can go to a health & glow type outlet and throw away 50 - 100 bucks for the same stuff.
Khadi gramodyog has round idli-like loofahs for 10 bucks each, made of fragrant vetiver! But remember to soak any natural fibre brush in water for a couple of days to soften it up. It can be quite rough on the skin when new.
If you have no choice but to go plastic, these damn things make pretty bubbles, but are bloody useless as scrubbers. You are better off with these - very very cheap, no-nonsense and effective. Just be nice and try to make one last for a long long long time, so that you reduce plastic waste. Once it is shredded from use, it can still scrub tiles or your bike or car.
That's it for this post. Bye!
For those unable to easily find Carbolic soaps locally, the following, widely available, variants are good, though slightly inferior, choices:
ReplyDeleteGodrej Vigil: http://tinyurl.com/njquze
VVF Bacter Shield: http://www.vvfltd.com/
The cleanest feeling after a long time. The smell of the Carbolic soap always reminds my of my childhood days in hostel where after hours of play and workouts later we used to scrub ourselves down with it before going for studies. Man !! dint realise how much that had helped then. And now getting back to it feels great :D
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