I thought I was the only person in the world who remembered Aqua Manda!. It is indelibly connected in my memory with working as a Saturday girl in an old-fashioned pharmacy in mid Wales followed by Saturday evenings at the disco in the Strand Hall. I definitely had the oatmeal soap which left oat flakes in the bath like bits of dried porridge. It is also weirdly connected in my memory with the conversion of our little town to natural gas. A gang of young man employed to convert all the appliances came to town like cowboys in an old fashioned western…sales of Aqua Manda soared….
That Aqua Manda picture was a Proustian madeleine for me that transported me back to my job as a Saturday girl in the Blackpool branch of Boots the Chemists. Once more I was filling a gondola counter with 1970s shampoo and conditioner bottles, which were an art for all of their own.. And does anyone remember the unmistacabe phallic symbolism of an aerosol can of Us deoderant?
Fifteen years ago I suddenly found I could no longer buy my favourite soap, which came in plain tissue and no label from a local garden centre. I was gutted and didn’t know what to do. After much thought I realised the only solution was to make my own and have been doing this ever since. Once mastered, it’s an utterly absorbing and all-consuming hobby and one that has given me so much pleasure and inspiration and actually seen me through some dark days. Thank you Jane for your lovely post and link to the wonderful Lady Lever Gallery. In celebration of your article a soap day is called for….Fennel & Spearmint I think….
Late 1960s when we were newly married, my Mum came to visit us and was horrified that I'd thrown away the last sliver of a bar of soap. She told me I should keep the soap ends and when I'd got a few, wet them so they'd stick together and I'd have a whole new bar of soap. Wartime mentality - waste nothing. I still feel slightly guilty throwing away soap slivers.
Forgot to mention that nearly 35 years ago I bought my Mum a wooden box of bronnley soaps. I still use the box to keep embroidery ribbon in and it still has a wonderful fragrance.
If you have secured some bars of good hard scented soap, get the most out of them by storing them tucked in with your woolens and scarves. This may or may not help to repel moths, but it definitely gives the woolens a faint but comforting perfume. My grandmother believed that "curing" soap like this made it last longer when it eventually reached the sink and soap dish (and the smell of Bronnley lemons and Devon violets always brings her back to me for a moment).
Crikey, this piece took me back to the days of Izal toilet paper and Imperial Leather in my 1930s childhood bathroom. My dear Mum thought she was doing us a service when she started buying Simple Soap. That really dried up my supple, teenage skin!
I refuse to use my one bar of savon de Marseilles because I have never been anywhere where I might be able to replace it. Echoing a previous comment, TKMaxx is a treasure trove for beautifully-wrapped Italian soaps, which I use, shove in drawers and display in glass containers.
A lot is written of Wm Lever’s Port
Sunlight, but he also donated the moorland north of the town to the people of Bolton and created pleasure gardens full of follies for
their use. In its heyday it would have been a place of wonderment for the industrious cotton workers.
The footprint of his bungalow is still there after being burned down
by local Suffragettes.
Have you been to Wightwick Manor on the outskirts of Wolverhampton? Full of original Wm Morris wallpapers & fabrics,
de Morgan tiles and a fabulous collection of PRBs. My favourite NT
property.
Every week your Yarnstorm is both an echo of my past and a continuation of my education. Thank you!
Hello. I found a website called French soap.co.uk where you can restock with Savin de Marseille! It’s like a rabbit hole when you look at it. Also if you are in Norfolk Stiffkey Stores sell it too. The smell when you go in is wonderful
Thank you for this homage to soap, which I support whole-heartedly. Growing up in the US, my passion for soap revolved around the exotic (to us West Coast teenagers) Crabtree and Evelyn scented soaps. The wild strawberry glycerine soap was particularly appealing. I now have a cupboard full of boxes of special soaps people have given me over the years - yes, the years. I use soap so sparingly, as if it were the war years, that it has mounted up and I surely have enough to see me out. I agree, a bar of soap in the hand is so much more satisfying and reassuring than those ill-designed hand soap dispensers - which to me also feel less hygienic, thinking of all the unwashed hands that have pressed the dispenser downwards. On an even more important note, most/many of those dispensers are unrecyclable hard plastic. Do we really need more hard plastic in the world given the environmental challenges we are facing? Yes, some are refillable, but how many people refill them? Let’s stick with bars of soap please until we have a better alternative!
You can still buy laundry soap in Australia. I like the one with the baby on the soap - it's either Velvet or Sunlight. Grated with a cup of washing soda and dissolved in boiling water to make a lovely, low irritant liquid washing detergent; I should make it again.
My mother used to make a soap and sugar plaster using velvet soap and white sugar…for application against bee stings, as it drew the venom out. I just use honey, it smells better, is less trouble (no grating of soap) and has the same effect.
Oh what a lovely lovely post. So many memories. I remember those TV ads for Camay or Lux with a glamorous woman slowly rubbing an inch of soap foam over her face to show us how moisturising it was (my skin would be as dry as a stick if I tried that). I confess to using liquid soap mostly these days, but I'm always drawn to the lovely flowery packaging of those big Italian bars of soap that they sell in places like TK Max and garden centres.
I never quite reached the giddy heights of Aqua Manda, but did of course have my fair share of Bronnley lemons. My other soap memory from that time is the fleeting 70s fashion for "soap on a rope".
I am always going on about real soap. No plastic to go in waste and it works better. Lots of places now have a wonderful range of fragrant soap. You may think it is expensive but it will last and last.
I spend a lot longer in the shower working up a lather and enjoying the fragrance. Patchouli, honeysuckle, bluebell etc. Oh yes, and I use a washing up bowl. Enjoy Sundays reading your post. Thanks. Joy.
Another vote for washing up bowls. Most of my china is vintage just kept over the years or bought from charity shops. I don't think dish washers are very kind to older china, certainly not anything handmade or painted.
Aqua Manda! I’d almost forgotten this. Thank you for such an enjoyable trip down the soap memory lane…I’m in agreement with everything you’ve mentioned (my Mum always bought Camay)
Ahh real soap..after my own heart..won’t have liquid soap in the house!…too much plastic and just isn’t the same..l love the lemon soap too and John Bratbys paintings…
Being known for my love of special soaps,l am given some perfect soap presents..but few years ago l discovered Bluebell soap from the London soap company..oh my ,the pinnacle of soaps…
Love your posts..full of all the important things in life..especially the Beatles!
What a wonderful trip down a soap filled memory lane. I had forgotten all about Aqua Manda and the thrill of receiving a Bronnley Lemon, definitely in the gift category. Every day we used Wright’s Coal Tar which I hated because of the smell, longing for my Mum to buy something luxurious like Camay.
We love going to TK Maxx and looking at all of the beautifully wrapped soaps. We choose a couple and love the different fragrances. Some last for weeks, others lather up beautifully but disappear within a few days. We use a soap bag in the shower which helps with the lather and exfoliates too!
Yay for solid soap! Moving to Europe put us in touch with many new types, far nicer than the Dove soap we used to have, and that my grandma loved. If ever in Germany, check out Klar Seife, which includes lovely solid soap with many understated scents, and also has bar washing up soap and solid shampoo and conditioner. We have become tremendous fans and often get soap as a souvenir to bring home from trips as our hand soap. Thanks so much, as always, for a brilliant post that has brightened a stormy Sunday.
I thought I was the only person in the world who remembered Aqua Manda!. It is indelibly connected in my memory with working as a Saturday girl in an old-fashioned pharmacy in mid Wales followed by Saturday evenings at the disco in the Strand Hall. I definitely had the oatmeal soap which left oat flakes in the bath like bits of dried porridge. It is also weirdly connected in my memory with the conversion of our little town to natural gas. A gang of young man employed to convert all the appliances came to town like cowboys in an old fashioned western…sales of Aqua Manda soared….
That Aqua Manda picture was a Proustian madeleine for me that transported me back to my job as a Saturday girl in the Blackpool branch of Boots the Chemists. Once more I was filling a gondola counter with 1970s shampoo and conditioner bottles, which were an art for all of their own.. And does anyone remember the unmistacabe phallic symbolism of an aerosol can of Us deoderant?
Fifteen years ago I suddenly found I could no longer buy my favourite soap, which came in plain tissue and no label from a local garden centre. I was gutted and didn’t know what to do. After much thought I realised the only solution was to make my own and have been doing this ever since. Once mastered, it’s an utterly absorbing and all-consuming hobby and one that has given me so much pleasure and inspiration and actually seen me through some dark days. Thank you Jane for your lovely post and link to the wonderful Lady Lever Gallery. In celebration of your article a soap day is called for….Fennel & Spearmint I think….
Late 1960s when we were newly married, my Mum came to visit us and was horrified that I'd thrown away the last sliver of a bar of soap. She told me I should keep the soap ends and when I'd got a few, wet them so they'd stick together and I'd have a whole new bar of soap. Wartime mentality - waste nothing. I still feel slightly guilty throwing away soap slivers.
Forgot to mention that nearly 35 years ago I bought my Mum a wooden box of bronnley soaps. I still use the box to keep embroidery ribbon in and it still has a wonderful fragrance.
If you have secured some bars of good hard scented soap, get the most out of them by storing them tucked in with your woolens and scarves. This may or may not help to repel moths, but it definitely gives the woolens a faint but comforting perfume. My grandmother believed that "curing" soap like this made it last longer when it eventually reached the sink and soap dish (and the smell of Bronnley lemons and Devon violets always brings her back to me for a moment).
My grandmother also insisted on curing soap (in the same way) for at least six months before using it.
Crikey, this piece took me back to the days of Izal toilet paper and Imperial Leather in my 1930s childhood bathroom. My dear Mum thought she was doing us a service when she started buying Simple Soap. That really dried up my supple, teenage skin!
I refuse to use my one bar of savon de Marseilles because I have never been anywhere where I might be able to replace it. Echoing a previous comment, TKMaxx is a treasure trove for beautifully-wrapped Italian soaps, which I use, shove in drawers and display in glass containers.
A lot is written of Wm Lever’s Port
Sunlight, but he also donated the moorland north of the town to the people of Bolton and created pleasure gardens full of follies for
their use. In its heyday it would have been a place of wonderment for the industrious cotton workers.
The footprint of his bungalow is still there after being burned down
by local Suffragettes.
Have you been to Wightwick Manor on the outskirts of Wolverhampton? Full of original Wm Morris wallpapers & fabrics,
de Morgan tiles and a fabulous collection of PRBs. My favourite NT
property.
Every week your Yarnstorm is both an echo of my past and a continuation of my education. Thank you!
Hello. I found a website called French soap.co.uk where you can restock with Savin de Marseille! It’s like a rabbit hole when you look at it. Also if you are in Norfolk Stiffkey Stores sell it too. The smell when you go in is wonderful
Thank you!
Edit: childhood 1930s bathroom! I wasn’t even a twinkle…
Thank you for this homage to soap, which I support whole-heartedly. Growing up in the US, my passion for soap revolved around the exotic (to us West Coast teenagers) Crabtree and Evelyn scented soaps. The wild strawberry glycerine soap was particularly appealing. I now have a cupboard full of boxes of special soaps people have given me over the years - yes, the years. I use soap so sparingly, as if it were the war years, that it has mounted up and I surely have enough to see me out. I agree, a bar of soap in the hand is so much more satisfying and reassuring than those ill-designed hand soap dispensers - which to me also feel less hygienic, thinking of all the unwashed hands that have pressed the dispenser downwards. On an even more important note, most/many of those dispensers are unrecyclable hard plastic. Do we really need more hard plastic in the world given the environmental challenges we are facing? Yes, some are refillable, but how many people refill them? Let’s stick with bars of soap please until we have a better alternative!
Oh oh oh how I do miss Crabtree and Evelyn soap…
Yes! It just vanished one sad day
I think it may still be available in the US, but I'm not up to date.
Do use up some of your soap stash. The scent does tend to fade over time.
I do use it, though slowly and frugally. That approach is hard-wired into my system.
You can still buy laundry soap in Australia. I like the one with the baby on the soap - it's either Velvet or Sunlight. Grated with a cup of washing soda and dissolved in boiling water to make a lovely, low irritant liquid washing detergent; I should make it again.
When I was a kid we washed our hair with it too.
My mother used to make a soap and sugar plaster using velvet soap and white sugar…for application against bee stings, as it drew the venom out. I just use honey, it smells better, is less trouble (no grating of soap) and has the same effect.
I do think you owe it to us to write An Ode to a Liquid Pump-Action Soap Dispenser.
🤣🤣🤣
Oh what a lovely lovely post. So many memories. I remember those TV ads for Camay or Lux with a glamorous woman slowly rubbing an inch of soap foam over her face to show us how moisturising it was (my skin would be as dry as a stick if I tried that). I confess to using liquid soap mostly these days, but I'm always drawn to the lovely flowery packaging of those big Italian bars of soap that they sell in places like TK Max and garden centres.
I never quite reached the giddy heights of Aqua Manda, but did of course have my fair share of Bronnley lemons. My other soap memory from that time is the fleeting 70s fashion for "soap on a rope".
I am always going on about real soap. No plastic to go in waste and it works better. Lots of places now have a wonderful range of fragrant soap. You may think it is expensive but it will last and last.
I spend a lot longer in the shower working up a lather and enjoying the fragrance. Patchouli, honeysuckle, bluebell etc. Oh yes, and I use a washing up bowl. Enjoy Sundays reading your post. Thanks. Joy.
Another vote for washing up bowls. Most of my china is vintage just kept over the years or bought from charity shops. I don't think dish washers are very kind to older china, certainly not anything handmade or painted.
Aqua Manda! I’d almost forgotten this. Thank you for such an enjoyable trip down the soap memory lane…I’m in agreement with everything you’ve mentioned (my Mum always bought Camay)
Ahh real soap..after my own heart..won’t have liquid soap in the house!…too much plastic and just isn’t the same..l love the lemon soap too and John Bratbys paintings…
Being known for my love of special soaps,l am given some perfect soap presents..but few years ago l discovered Bluebell soap from the London soap company..oh my ,the pinnacle of soaps…
Love your posts..full of all the important things in life..especially the Beatles!
What a wonderful trip down a soap filled memory lane. I had forgotten all about Aqua Manda and the thrill of receiving a Bronnley Lemon, definitely in the gift category. Every day we used Wright’s Coal Tar which I hated because of the smell, longing for my Mum to buy something luxurious like Camay.
We love going to TK Maxx and looking at all of the beautifully wrapped soaps. We choose a couple and love the different fragrances. Some last for weeks, others lather up beautifully but disappear within a few days. We use a soap bag in the shower which helps with the lather and exfoliates too!
Yay for solid soap! Moving to Europe put us in touch with many new types, far nicer than the Dove soap we used to have, and that my grandma loved. If ever in Germany, check out Klar Seife, which includes lovely solid soap with many understated scents, and also has bar washing up soap and solid shampoo and conditioner. We have become tremendous fans and often get soap as a souvenir to bring home from trips as our hand soap. Thanks so much, as always, for a brilliant post that has brightened a stormy Sunday.