How to make your soap last longer. Mine lasted for over a year!

I know that sounds impossible. But I'm a bit of a control freak with a mild obsession over making sure I get to use a product's every last drop, so you just gotta trust me on this. You see, I never really noticed I could make soaps last longer than most people, I thought it was 'normal' for body soaps to last for months and facial soaps to last for up to a year.

I didn't realize it was just me until I had younger brothers who could use up bar soaps (Safeguard, Irish Spring, Dial) in less than a month. Provided, they're little children who shower and bathe, and leave the soaps on the floor or in a water-filled soap dish. Of course the soaps would melt into goo in a few weeks. And then I married a guy who's equal parts a germ-freak and a slob who showers twice a day and then leaves the bar soap in a gooey mess on the soap dish. What is it with men and their gigil with soaps when they shower? My brothers and my husband both leave the soaps with finger marks after using them.

Anyway, let me show you what a year-old soap looks like versus one fresh from the box:

Year old soap

From the side

How the bottom looks. See how the settling of the water at the bottom deforms it?

Closer look. It's actually a bit gross-looking in person. It looks like gelatin and feels slimy.
The top surface though is all clean and 100% usable.

This soap is from my selfish derma. She won't tell me what brand this is, nor what's in it. She says it's her specific formulation, but I'm calling BS on that. I've visited half a dozen dermatologists and that's what they all say - unless a product comes in a labelled box, it's their formula or concoction or whatever. I have a friend who works in a chem/pharma lab and she says dermas get their stuff from the same sources, they just change the containers and slap their logos on em. This specific soap though only comes covered in thick, transparent plastic, no labels, no clue. I guess the derma just wanted monopoly on it.

This soap was 'prescribed' to me when I consulted her for the sudden onset of eczema on the sides of my face. The trigger? Fake jewelry. It wasn't this soap that helped cure my eczema, but the scary steroids (betnovate and clobetasol) which I still use every time my eczema decides to ruin my life, which is like 4 times a year. The soap though, is gold. My face was once dependent on Kojic acid soap, that stuff is bad, it's good for a while and then it wreaks havoc on your face, that thing caused my premature wrinkles! Avoid, avoid, avoid Kojic acid soaps!

So this soap, it's perfect. It's removes light makeup in just one wash, and super heavy makeup (primer + concealer + long wear foundation + powder + all that crap) in just two washes, unlike gel or foam facial washes that takes more than 3 washes to remove all the goo at the nooks and corners. I think this soap has a whitening component, I can't really tell since my face is already super pale, but this helps fade spots and helps keep my face bright. I feel the difference when I don't use this like when I'm away for a weekend and used a different facial wash, my face feels a bit stickier and looks dull. This also doesn't cause peeling or dryness. It just leaves the skin feeling clean and soft. 

I wish there's some clue as to where I can buy this soap so I can also properly rave about it and share it to the world. I mean, I don't know about you, but whenever I find good products, I tell everyone I know. It makes me feel good that I've helped people, plus looking at it from an economic perspective, the more people I tell, the more demand is created for the product, the bigger and more sustainable the supply there will be. Sadly, all I know about this soap is that it smells like vanilla, it's white, and it suds well. Sorry, world, I failed you.

My derma sells this soap for P300. That's pretty expensive for a soap, if you ask me. Of course, designer soaps cost 5 times more, but we're talking about a possibly locally-manufactured soap that did not spend on marketing and celebrity endorsements. P300 is expensive. Even my derma thought so. She said it's kind of expensive so I can just cut it up in smaller pieces, use a chunk at a time and store the other chunks for future use. This is what compelled me to write.

It annoys me really. This is what happens when you cut up soap into smaller chunks:

sorry, made this using basic paint.

When you cut up soap into smaller chunks, you get the illusion that you are saving half the soap, the one you store away. But in reality, what happens is you basically create a new surface that is exposed to water, and you know what water does to soap, right? The bigger/the more surfaces are exposed to water, the less time it takes to melt the soap. Also, smaller chunks produce more wastage. The smaller chunks melt faster, and so in no time, they melt into the tiny pieces you just throw away because they're too small for you to use. The more chunks, the more surface areas, the more wastage. Unlike when you don't cut up the soap entirely, and just expose the top surface to water, like how I use soaps.

To sum it up, this is how I make soaps last long, some even for a year:

1. I use soap dishes with holes at the bottom. Not the ones that collect water in them. The ones with holes but has some sort of container for the collected water only creates pools that melt away the bottom of the soap. Also, holes help air circulate and keep the bottom of the soap dry. 
2. The ultimate goal is to keep the soap dry. Place the soap near the window where there's air and warmth. Make sure to not expose the soap to the sun as this dries the soap too much.
3. If you need to place the soap by the faucet, near the shower, or at a location where it will get unnecessarily wet from splashes, cover it.
4. Most importantly: when you use the soap, do not do it as my brothers and husband do it. Do not twist it, or place it under running water or scrub it on your face. Use your wet hand to wipe on its surface, get enough lather and apply it on your face. This usually gets enough soap to clean your face. I know because my face by the end of a long day is the oiliest and grimiest with all that makeup and pollution. 
5. You can do #4 for facial bars, for body soaps, that would be too much hard work. You can still save body soaps by applying 1-3 and then avoiding putting the soap under running water. Or, if your body soap is expensive and it usually lasts for 3 weeks, you can use loofahs to "wipe" on its top surface as in #4. This should make the bar last for at least 2 months. 
6. I have 3 soaps: 1 expensive facial soap, 1 mid-priced body soap, 1 cheap soap. The cheap soap I use on my hands, for frequent washing. I usually get Dove and beauty soaps with moisturizing and anti-aging stuff. I avoid stuff with acids on them as in most whitening soaps. I normally don't "wipe" on the cheap soaps as they're usually cheap anyway, plus I'm a mom with a ton of things to do, I wash my hands 5 times a day, minimum.

I know this is a bit OC, but this saves a lot of money. Consider my soap for example, it's worth P300 outright, but I make it last for let's say 12 months. That's P25 per month! Most bar soaps and how they're typically used make them last a month tops, they're worth about P50 to P100. That's P600 to P1,200 in a year! I'm normally not kuripot especially when it comes to quality, but I also try to be environmentally conscious and I tend to look at things in macroeconomic terms. Imagine a billion people spending P1,200 a year on soap when they could be spending just P300! P900 Billion on soap alone. That's a lot of money spent on wastage, unnecessary marketing, production costs that takes its toll on the environment, and the eventual pollution caused by the billions of soap boxes, stickers and plastic wrappers. 

I hope more people realizes this. I also hope my derma finally decides to share where she gets her soaps so I can tell people about it. I need to save the world from Kojic Acid.