When did shower gel replace soap (in Ireland)?

Inane question I know, but when I was a kid I always used soap in the bath and for washing hands and I'm just wondering when people started using shower gel (and liquid handwash) instead? I can't remember what age I was but when I first heard of shower gel it sounded very wasteful and luxurious - a bar of soap seemed like it would last much longer than a bottle of shower gel. I would have imagined the rich kids (the kind with nike airmax, sky digital and a bottle of coke for their lunch) would have got to use shower gel! And yet low and behold it is universally used now and has been for at least the mid 2000s I would imagine, so when did it first start being used here? It's the kind of change that happens under your nose being such an unnoteworthy part of your life, a bit like how certain foods disappear without you realising it! Also apparently shampoo only became commonly used since the 70s? any truth to that?

frozenfrozen

shower thoughts is that way >>>>>>>>>>>>




I've always had shower gel in my 21 years, so before then?!

frozenfrozen

frozenfrozen wrote: »

shower thoughts is that way >>>>>>>>>>>>




I've always had shower gel in my 21 years, so before then?!

If you're just 21 then you can probably only remember like 15/16 of those years so I'd say it was definitely around in 2000 anyway!

L1011

Liquid soaps - shower gel and handwash - started being seen as more hygienic in the 1990s. Standard of living improvements and the massive reduction in the real cost of groceries (food insanely - Irish families used to spend a third of their income on food!) will have helped deal with the price.

Shampoo as a separate product would have likely only become popular in the 60s and 70s - it only came in to existence as what we'd recognise now before WWII - but people did use hard soap before that.

ChunkyLover54

I'd say about '94/'95. Maybe a bit earlier. Just my vague recollections.

spurious

I use both. Soap for the cleaning, shower gel for the nice smells.

Peregrinus

Producers like shower gel because profit margins are higher, plus you use a lot more of it - most of the product is washed down the drain, literally. What's not to like, from a producer's point of view? They sell it by trying to promote the idea that it is more hygienic, though they have to be careful about how they suggest this, since there is in fact little objective foundation for the claim.

One advantage that shower gel does offer is convenience - it makes a perfectly acceptable shampoo, so the one product can deal with both your showering needs. Obviously, though, producers would rather sell you two products, so they tend not to stress this fact, except when marketing to particular segments - specifically, men in the 30s and above, for whom convenience is a big selling point. Producers will market a "2-in-1" product to this segment although, truth be told, pretty well any shower gel will function well as a 2-in-1 product.

Shower gels are mostly water-based (the word "gel" is a bit of a misnomer, strictly speaking) so they are better vehicles for delivering moisturiser than hard soap is. for this reason if you have very sensitive skin shower gels may offer advantages. But I stress "may"; the marketing of shower gels as luxury items often involves the additions of (natural or synthetic) fragrances, essential oils, etc, which have no cosmetic or hygienic function but make the user feel pampered. Particularly in the cheaper shower gels, these can be a bit hard on the skin, and this may offset any moisturising benefits.

GrumpyMe

From memory Cussons Imperial Leather would be one of the most advertised soap bars on TV. Last of their commercials appeared around 1990. Palmolive possibly late 80's.
Knights Castile, Lifebouy, Sunlight, and Wright's Coal Tar earlier still.

Deleted User wrote: »

When did shower gel replace soap (in Ireland)?

Probably as we took fright at pubes left stuck to the bar!

L1011

Ref: the price and profit margin - didn't realise how cheap soap bars had actually got - was going to say that branded shower gels are often on sale for a quid a go in the major retailers, but the regular price of 4x branded soap bars is about 1.50 in Tesco.

Branded shampoo is still insanely priced, though.

Water John

While Bobby Ewing was in the shower.

rubadub

ChunkyLover54 wrote: »

I'd say about '94/'95. Maybe a bit earlier. Just my vague recollections.

definitely earlier than that, mid or late 80s. I remember one in an ad which had a hook to hang off your soap bar holder or other things in the shower.

This is 89, this ad also appears on another youtube video of 1987 ads.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Pl1blFJqE8I

this says 91, the more memorable one with a copy of the song "all over now"

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sHwUrNZUSus

DoozerT6

Funnily enough, I was thinking the same thing fairly recently. I would say shower gels and liquid soap have been around since maybe the late 80's myself. I've gone back to buying bars of soap for use in the shower, I try to buy the nice hand made ones you get in health food shops and specialty shops. I'm trying to cut back a bit on waste. I'd probably get a month out of a bar of soap, but they are significantly more expensive than buying shower gel for €1.50 (with 100% extra free!) in Dealz

Cee-Jay-Cee

I remember the day well, it was 12/07/1989.

Lorelli!

My grandparents use to use this old soap. It had a very strong scent that wasnt horrible but it wasnt great either and you could get it in blue or pink as far as I remember. Anyone recognise or know the name of it?

DoozerT6

Lorelli! wrote: »

My grandparents use to use this old soap. It had a very strong scent that wasnt horrible but it wasnt great either and you could get it in blue or pink as far as I remember. Anyone recognise or know the name of it?

Shield, by any chance?

Lorelli!

DoozerT6 wrote: »

Shield, by any chance?

Yes I googled that and I think that's it with the white stripes throughout the bar

Thanks Doozer

milli milli

I remember the shower gels in the nineties. The thing I liked about them over soaps is that they would leave a nice scent on your hands/body whereas soap didn't.
I've noticed the same thing for handwashes. I don't feel clean after washing my hands with soap.
I know there are those handmade, essential oil soaps now, but I prefer the liquids.
If you use a shower-pouf you only use a squirt (or two) of gel and a bottle will last weeks.

P.S. my mum told me about carbolic soap in her day. It was a big rectangular block of soap - a pink-red colour used for washing bodies and laundry!
I remember it in my granny's house. Had a strong scent.

mikemac2

You could buy soap on a rope

I remember my parents getting it as gift for my primary school teacher.

I've never seen it in at any shop so I assumed I was gone. I had a quick google and brands like Ted Baker have it so still around

snowflaker

Remember Clinic Shampoo - smelly nasty eye burning evil!

threetrees

When Tahiti came into the market bars of soap went out of fashion.

milli milli

snowflaker wrote: »

Remember Clinic Shampoo - smelly nasty eye burning evil!

That's vaguely familiar.
I remember Bristows shampoo!

Very happy memories of Johnsons baby shampoo though.

DoozerT6

snowflaker wrote: »

Remember Clinic Shampoo - smelly nasty eye burning evil!

I loved that smell!!! It was pretty sting-y though.

Spanish Eyes

I like bar soap myself, but it is so fekkin messy really.

Anyway, being the reprobate that I am, I pinch the little soap bars from every hotel I go to that has them. They are great for travelling when you only have hand luggage. Doesn't have to go in the plastic bag.

milli milli

threetrees wrote: »

When Tahiti came into the market bars of soap went out of fashion.

Oh thanks for the memory! Forget about Tahiti Shower!

jumbobreakfast

Lifebuoy carbolic soap. The carbolic acid burned the skin off you. Commonly found alongside euthymol toothpaste for those who enjoyed a bit of self harm to wake them up in the morning

Posy

threetrees wrote: »

When Tahiti came into the market bars of soap went out of fashion.

I'd forgotten about tahiti until I seen this thread and tried to remember what we used when I was a child.
I remember that there was imperial leather soap in the house, but we always had tahiti shower gel in various different colours.

infogiver

I first bought a bottle of shower gel in about 1988. I'd imagine it was Radox.
My mother has had pink Camay since the 1970s. Nothing else.
An elderly neighbour gave her a bar of soap specifically for washing clothes once, that neighbor is dead about 20 years and mam still uses that same bar as "Vanish" if there's a stain she can't shift.

MysticMonk

Hmm,lemme think.

The first ad for non-solid soap that I remember was around 1983-84 for a soap called Soft Touch which came in a dispenser. The idea of pump-action liquid soap caught on slowly but that's the first brand I can remember.


As for shower gel,again I can only base it on an ad I saw for Insignia men's products "Insignia's got everything shampoo to shower gel"..this was around 1985-87.

Hope that helps a bit.

Ann22

jumbobreakfast wrote: »

Lifebuoy carbolic soap. The carbolic acid burned the skin off you. Commonly found alongside euthymol toothpaste for those who enjoyed a bit of self harm to wake them up in the morning

My uncle used it...dark pink it was with a powerful smell. Sunday mornings in my granny's would smell like Lifebuoy as he'd scrub himself at the sink. My cousin once found a piece of it on the kitchen table and thought it was a bit of corned beef from teatime and popped it in her mouth

I thought Shield smelt lovely.. had it in my PE kit in 1st year although I'd imagine the smell of it would bring back memories of the whole shower and communal changing room thing. Hated that!

We used Imperial Leather at home at bathtime...right until it was worn right down to the wee label thing. Shower gel must've been late 80s early 90s. I'm not sure.

thesandeman

Matey bubble bath. That was basically shower gel except nobody really had showers at the time.

ZeroCool17

Ya I would have said mid nineties in our house. Jaysis we thought we were very fancy altogether.

An Riabhach

Even when shower gel became "the new thing", we were still using soap because it was cheaper.

My mother,however, always had her own,e.g."Cleopatra" and "Knight's Castle", and of course nobody else was allowed to touch it!!

DoozerT6

An Riabhach wrote: »

Even when shower gel became "the new thing", we were still using soap because it was cheaper.

My mother,however, always had her own,e.g."Cleopatra" and "Knight's Castle", and of course nobody else was allowed to touch it!!

omg I forgot about Cleopatra soap!! Very highly perfumed IIRC.

Amalgam

I remember using Shower gel in the early 80s, the stuff could cause chemical irritation somewhere I'd rather not mention (male). I can't use the stuff still..

The Radox gel was awful for that. I may have intentionally bought the large pink Lifebuoy slabs and Wright's, I loved the smell.

I recently got a few bars of 'proper' tar soap through eBay, from Lithuania. The smell is lovely, to me ..and hygienic too. The brand linked below, all over eBay, prices vary a lot.

Google > Nevskaya+Kosmetika+birch+tar+soap

http://www.google.com/images?q=Nevskaya+Kosmetika+birch+tar+soap

Delighted soap like that still exists.

You haven't lived until you've survived getting old school, pink gel, Biactol, in your eyes..