When in doubt...

Sometimes it’s the small things that make you feel better… as Mae West said: “When in doubt, take a bath.” Well, I’m with her on that - particularly as I was given a couple of packets of Pears soap for Christmas. Pears soap, now that takes me back, makes me feel safe and secure. As a child I’d stand outside the local chemist gazing in at the bars on display in the window. They looked so luxurious, amber bars of deepest orange, translucently fascinating, a solid elixir of forest, coal and magical herbs, like looking at a pirate’s chest of rare and beautiful treasures.

I know, I know, it’s only a bar of soap, but for some reason Pears has always held a special fascination for me. Maybe it’s the fact that it’s the oldest continuously existing brand in the world, first registered in 1789. Or perhaps it’s the nostalgia of those old ads; Pre-Raphaelite boys blowing bubbles; dusky, smiling, south sea maidens; puppies and kittens. No, maybe not.

Then perhaps it’s that wonderfully thick oval shape. The shape of a bar of Pears is just right for the bath. So comfortably concave that it fits your hand as if each bar were bespoke just for you…almost undroppable

Of course it could be that for some strange reason I’ve always thought of it as posh… and the smell is like nothing else… and that colour…

Sometimes I find myself gazing into the amber depths half expecting to find a Jurassic wasp or ant captured deep inside its substance.

As a child I don’t remember washing with Pears - my first Pears memory is another Christmas as a teenager - but strangely that freshly laundered, gently spiced aroma and slight tarmac tang immediately takes me back to childhood every time I breathe it in.

Inhale deeply. You can almost smell it can’t you?

A few years ago they changed the formula. It affected the look and smell substantially and causing such uproar on Facebook that they had to change it back, well almost. Like everything in this modern world Pears isn’t as pure or natural as it used to be. I missed all that so will never know how the ‘new’ Pears smelled or looked. Of course, with the advent of hand soap dispensers and shower gels, bars of soap of any kind are becoming increasingly hard to find. The only soap easily obtainable seems to be that horrible Dove stuff, also made by Unilever. I wonder how long it will be before Pears soap goes the way of Corona pop and the Dodo?

Oh well, time for a bath. I wonder if you can still buy Wright’s coal tar soap.