Getting in a bit of a lather

Anyone remember Camay soap? The one with the creamy lather, rich perfume, and a lot of brides in their marketing strategy?

In my childhood, there was also Pears (my favourite), Fairy, Knight’s Castile, Palmolive, Lux and Imperial Leather each having their own virtues (according to the experts and advertising companies) to having beautiful skin.
There was also an assortment of creams (Ponds, Astral, Oil of Ulay) that promised to keep you looking young and beautiful. I admit I was young once, never beautiful, and use an occasional drop of Olay (as it is now) in the winter months.
But I’ll stick with soap for this post.

I confess I have not used soap on my face for years, though as a kid I would forever be making as many bubbles as I could and plastering it all over my face like Dad did with his shaving cream. Actually I tried that too once and looked like Santa Junior.

Camay was one of the more luxurious and thus expensive soaps at the time, and I remember the flowery perfume and creamy lather it used to produce.
I also remember how much it stung and the red blotchy patches I ended up with when I incorrectly thought that, like some shampoos, you had to leave it on for a while so that it could work its magic.
There have been several other beauty soaps since (Dove for instance) that are more gentle and smell equally as nice for a fraction of the price.

Hubby has allergies, and so perfumed ‘brand’ soaps are off the shopping list, and we use a very basic but pure soap for washing ourselves at a cost of 35 pence for three 100 gram bars (not exactly breaking the bank then).
It scores no points at all for lather, but it does the job and we are clean.
For showers, we use a lemon shower gel which doubles up as shampoo for the grand sum of one pound for a 500 ml bottle.

Hubby is suffering with his skin though, and we are at present going through an elimination test period to discover what is drying his face out and making him flake.
Over the past week, he has not used soap on his face and has not shaved either, so resembles a greying hedgehog (an unkissed greying hedgehog I’m afraid, I hate bristles!).
We have a theory that it could be the additive we’ve been putting in the water when filling up our tank, the soap (doubtful unless it’s an improved formula and there was no mention of that on the label), or it’s his electric razor which is actually blunt and not doing the job.

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