Update Thursday, September 7, 2017.
Four years after writing the below
Master Soap Soap Gifts post, I'm finally, finally, finally through with the last bar of handmade soap bought from Etsy.
Sorry to say, but I won't ever buy anymore of those soaps. Sure, they look and smell nice and I'm supporting small businesses, but aside from a few, the rest either disintegrated into a puddle of slimy goo that clogged my sink drain or cracked up and crumbled into tiny pieces, forcing me to toss most at about 2/3 the way through. Urgh.
So I was more than happy to move on to these cutesy soaps from the Otomebakko (Maiden Coffret) I'd kept for myself and was promptly forced to eat my words. "Decoration soaps," I said, "used to beautify the bathroom counter or hallway accent tables, and use the larger cutesy soaps but temper your expectations". I was such an asshole, dismissing these soaps without trying them first!
Because you know what, we finally tried the usagi (rabbit) soap in the clear cellophane wrapper and, well, it turns out to be a fantastic bar of soap! It foams well and washes well without being too drying. Best of all, we're more than half way through the bar and it has neither melted nor cracked. To quote hubby, "This is the best soap we've used since coming
home from Tokyo!"
The whole time in Tokyo, we were using mostly
L'Occitane Bonne Mere soaps for our hands and liquid body wash for the shower. And with Tokyo being hot and humid, the Bonne Mere bars were great but here at home they're super drying. Considering we wash our hands all the freakin' time with a baby, it's actually quite impressive that the usagi soap hasn't deep fried our hands yet. Why the hell did we put up with all those crappy soaps while shelving these great ones for four years? Argh!!!
Guess who's doing some major damage via Master Soap's online store? They do ship internationally, by the way, and using EMS only, which means I paid an arm and a leg for soaps. But then I'd spent triple quadruple that before for the Etsy soaps, only to toss so many away. So I won't complain paying for good soaps. You can expect to see more of Master Soap.
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Original post Wednesday, July 10, 2013.
Spotted these
Master Soap Soap Gifts in Alpha Beauty UK's E(vil)bay store (*not* affiliated!) and snatched these up in a jiffy ^.^ If you live in Japan, you should check out
Master Soap's website, as the Japanese retails for these adorable soap gifts are quite reasonable, between 300-2,700JPY depends on the size of the gift.
Also, it should be noted that the cutesy ones are most likely "decoration soaps" or scenting soaps, you know, to beautify the bathroom counter or hallway accent tables, etc. They do sell bath/hand soaps and you can certainly use the larger cutesy soaps, just temper your expectation accordingly ^.^ I haven't tried them myself so I can't really say one way or another, but I can tell you they are super duper cute in person and make excellent gifts and/or decorations for your family, friends, and home!
Otomebakko (Maiden Coffret) Soap Gift