Now I'm not going to comment except in passing about soap on a rope being something you'd see men using in prison. This soap is not as cheap as regular soap so I don't think prisoners with limited funds would be buying this product and for that matter I don't whether the prison commissaries would even make this available. But I really have no idea and I don't guess I really want to know that badly.
Some of the product advertising I've seen for soap on a rope tout it as being good for elderly folks or people with physical disabilities. I can understand the point they're making about this, but I wonder if that market is very widespread.
I have a tendency to believe that soap on a rope is mostly a novelty item for dopes like me. For that brief period in high school I became a soap on a rope dope. Yeah, my mother bought me the soap and I used it until it was gone. But the fact was that I couldn't cope with being a soap on a rope dope. It was kind of weird soap to use actually.
That was the only bar of soap on a rope that I recall ever having until a few years ago when my wife gave me this gift set from Macy's that included various men's toiletry items. The soap was one of the freebies that came with the primary product which was cologne and after shave.
My wife loves it when Macy's has those specials when they throw in a bunch of free gifts. I'm sure most of you ladies out there know what I'm talking about. You should see all the various sorts of carry bags and pouches she has. And I got some soap on a rope.
So I took my soap on a rope and hung it on the wall next to the medicine cabinet. It's like a peculiar piece of art that most people never see. I don't even see it most of the time--or I guess maybe I just take it for granted since it's been there for so long.
Occasionally I might accidentally hit it when I'm opening the medicine cabinet and then it just kind of swings there like a pendulum without a clock. When that happens I usually pause for a moment to look at the soap still wrapped in plastic like Laura Palmer (an obscure reference that some may recognize). Then I'll forget about it until the next time I think about it.
According to one source I found, soap on a rope first came about in the mid-1800s. Then in 1949 the product was reintroduced by the company that makes English Leather men's cologne. Oh yeah, I've got a bottle of that stuff that's been sitting around for probably longer than I've had the soap on a rope. Where'd that come from anyway? I'll have to do a post about English Leather some other time I guess.
So anyway, I guess soap on a rope gets a periodic revival from companies who think it's a cool idea and then new dopes develop soap on a rope hopes. Or they get it free in some gift set or somebody gives it to them as a gag gift.
Soap on a rope doesn't seem all that practical to me. But it does make for kind of a unique wall-hanging.
