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A bar of soap is a practical product to have in the house. Perfect to wash your hands, or to wash your body with. It’s not always the most exciting cleansing item to have but it does the job! Occasionally, I have one living in my shower for quick and ease of use. So I’m always open to buying a new one, regardless of brand or fragrance. I picked up Swizzels Drumstick Squashies Soap in Raspberry & Milk fragrance for £1.49 from Home Bargains earlier this year.
Why did I buy this? Packaging! Pure and simple packaging! I bought 3 items from this range ( 2 soaps and a bath fizzer ) because the packaging was so eye catching and similar to the sweets these pieces were inspired by. The price wasn’t expensive and they just seemed fun!
Packaging. Near identical to the actual sweets version. The soap comes in a red and yellow striped packet, with the brand and product name blasted all over the front. But clearly its marked as a soap so not for consumption! On the back the typical warnings, ingredients and company details are visible. The soap itself is cling wrapped once you take it out of the packet. Easy enough to remove.
Appearance. Not a perfectly shaped rectangular bar of soap. The edges aren’t totally straight but rectangular it indeed is. Roughly 3 inches in length, 2 inches across and under 1inch thick. The colouring reminds me of the sweets because its half cream in colour, half light pink. But much lighter in vibrancy. Other than that its flat in texture, shiny, and looks like soap. Very plain in look. Ok, but not special.
Scent. I couldn’t really smell this while it was in its packaging, but when I took it out it didn’t smell as I thought it would. It smelt raspberry-ish and sweet. But smelt more like a cheap candle ready to burn than a bar of soap ready to be submerged in water. It was pleasant enough, but not what I expected.
In the shower. After wetting my skin, I rubbed the soap onto a damp sponge and it created bubbles. I say bubbles, it was more a cream like texture rather than full on foam. It rubbed onto my skin easily and rinsed off well ( or did it? ). I did think with the amount of friction I created between soap and sponge, there would be a lot of fluffy, appealing bubbles but there wasn’t.
On the skin. I first noticed this while in the shower. My skin felt clean but not in a good way. Squeaky clean in fact. I also felt as if my skin was coated with something. Not grease or oil or anything like that, but something. And once I was out of the shower I realised how dry my body felt, yet my skin felt sticky on certain areas e.g arms. No actual residue I could see or feel, but my skin just felt all kind of wrong. It was as if the soap hadn’t washed off properly and didn’t moisturise my skin. Even sucking out my skin’s natural moisture leaving it feeling parched. My only blessing was my skin wasn’t itchy. By the way, no obvious fragrance left on my skin after use although smelt it mildly while in the shower.
Recommended? Nope! The minimum I expect from any product I use to clean myself with is to feel clean and comfortable. This didn’t do that. The only thing I liked was the packaging and once that was taken off the disappointment kicked in. The soap wasn’t incredibly appealing in look. The scent wasn’t special. It didn’t create soft and fluffy bubbles. But the worst bit was leaving my skin feeling tacky and dry all at the same time. I can’t put this down to price because I’ve bought and used affordable soaps before and they’ve performed a trillion times better. Price wise even cheaper than this! But this was an epic fail for me. One product heading in the bin, and I don’t do that type of thing lightly!