By now washing your hands often should be on auto-pilot mode in your hygiene routine, but if you’re going to do something multiple times a day, it wouldn’t hurt to make the chore a little more enjoyable and pleasant. You don’t have to box yourself in with boring bar soaps that dry out your hands or smell like cheap perfume. We’ve rounded up some of our favorites below that will make you want to get your hands (and body!) dirty...

“Wash your hands often with soap and water for at least 20 seconds.” That’s what the CDC has advised all Americans to do to prevent the spread of COVID-19 during this pandemic. It’s common-sense advice. The surfactants found in soap lift germs from the skin, and water then washes them away. Soap is inexpensive and ubiquitous; it’s a consumer product found in every household across the country. Yet few people know the long and dirty history of making soap, the product...

Plastic bottles are the scourge of the ocean. By 2050, if humans don't make major changes, there will be more plastic in the ocean than fish—it’s a statistic widely quoted in media. Yet even supposedly environmentally-conscious consumers like myself continue to buy personal hygiene products like shampoo and lotion in plastic bottles, because there doesn’t seem to be much of a choice. Outdoor-loving sisters Tessa and Davia Rose-Scheeres, who are 13 and 11 and live in Albany, California, found themselves in...

These new-generation facial bar soaps might just change your mind about liquid cleansers. There was a time when using the same bar of body soap on your face was a thing. But as we now know, different areas of the skin require very distinctive attention. Consequently, bar soaps were blacklisted from our skincare regime for its harsh detergent constituents and skin drying factors. Since then, beauty brands have realised that it isn’t the bar itself that is the culprit, but the formulation. Thus began the...

If you're anything like [checks notes] pretty much every dude I've ever met in my life, there's a good chance that there was some point in your formative years when you decided that you had crossed the rubicon into adulthood and were now a Body Wash Guy. In all likelihood, it happened in your teens, because we're all a little gross and very terrified and deeply susceptible to the kind of marketing that says shit like, "Bar soap is fine...