Imperial

02 January 2017

For years I looked at Cussons Imperial Leather soap as being nothing special. Through my childhood I had little exposure to it (not soap!) and always wondered why it appealed to so many. I thought ‘how could so many be taken in by the ads or its long history or…

During December my wife brought some home, a six-pack on special offer (of course) and when my previous, moisturising, bar became too small to handle comfortably whilst attempting to wake up, and to avoid the newly-present danger of it escaping my grasp and exiting via the washbasin plughole, I opened the pack.

What a revelation! It has a distinctive aroma, of course it has, but unlike anything else I’d experienced when my parents and I shared bars, or visiting someone else’s home.

So I sat and pondered for a while. Insularity, navel-gazing, easily bests following the news any day, and especially the latter days of the year just ended. But I digress…

Now I understand this soap’s appeal! It’s mine, untainted (too strong?) by other peoples’ lack of handwashing skills, disparate fragrances, and of course inability to empty the water and soap scum from their soap dishes. In short, no-one washes with it but I.

And, while the fragrance remains on me, I smell almost human. Yes!

But how? Well, here’s the thing. No-one else’s sweat, sebaceous oil, flakes of dead skin, faeces, earwax, nasal mucus, none of it touches my precious bar of soap.

Its a rubbish moisturiser for faces though, my newly-scaly forehead is testament to that! Perhaps it’s as well one of my Christmas presents is a moisturising cream. Now I’m definitely on the lookout for an Imperial Leather face soap.

Cussons Original Imperial Leather hand soap thus gets Baz’s seal of approval and, new for 2017, a rating of 9/10 for its intended purpose.