geek!

[cos]

Often when I am visiting someone and use their shower, they say that I should use their soap but I don't think to ask which bottle, specifically, is their shampoo/soap. I don't think to ask because these things are labelled, right?

Except that many times when I'm looking for bottles that say "Shampoo" or "Soap", I instead find an assortment of bottles labelled "Body Wash", "Bath Gel", "Bath & Shower Cream", "Bubble Bath", "Herbal Treatment", and host of other names. Some of these are soaps, some are conditioners, and some are neither (moisturizers, scents, bubbling substances). There's a code. I don't know the code.

Instead, I recently noticed that what I almost absentmindedly just look at the ingredients. I haven't taken an organic chemistry class or test since the 90s, but I can still spot names of compounds that seem like something with a lipid (fatty) tail and a polar head of some sort. If one of the top few ingredients in one of these frilly-named bath products is one of those compounds, then I can use it as soap. I can't read the marketing code, but I can read enough of the chemistry code to find what I'm looking for.

Edit: Conditioners seem to have a lot of fatty alcohols. I don't know why that never threw me off. Maybe because conditioners are labelled "conditioner" so consistently, I got used to it.

Comments

Re: oils

[estheruth.livejournal.com]

what about bath oil?

Re: oils

[blk]

It always seemed to me that oil was more meant for moisturizing and smelling nice. Using anything oil to cleanse seems sorta backwards to me. :)

Re: oils

[cos]

I haven't seen it in someone's shower, but I definitely remember seeing ads for something called "Murphy's Oil Soap" in the 90s on TV :)

Re: oils

[beah.livejournal.com]

That's not for people! Murphy's oil soap is to clean and oil furniture and wood floors and saddles and such. Oil does not go on people to get them clean.

Re: oils

[cos]

Sure, that particular product is. But it does show that they can combine oil and soap in the same product, and who's to say they won't make one for people? Just because I see "oil" in the name doesn't tell me "definitely not soap".

Re: oils

[wendolen.livejournal.com]

... unless you're in ancient Greece and removing it with a scraper!

Re: oils

[electrictruffle.livejournal.com]

Or using oil and a scraper on the playa...

-ETR

Re: oils

[blk]

That's for wood, IIRC, and while you are welcome to use furniture cleanser on YOUR skin, I think I'll stay with my boring old bar soap. :)

Re: oils

[cutieperson]

Murphy's Oil Soap is to clean & shine wood floors.

Re: oils

[concrete.livejournal.com]

I remember Castor Oil Soap - the exception to the rule?

Re: oils

[surrealestate.livejournal.com]

Most (all?) soaps are made with some sort of fat and are labeled as such: olive oil soap, coconut oil soap, etc. But they're soaps made with the oil, they aren't oil.

Re: oils

[cos]

True, for something to be a soap or soaplike substance serving that purpose, it *must* have a lipid (fat) portion of the compound, which means it is often made from an oil. Which is yet another reason why seeing "Oil" on the label doesn't tell me it's not a soap. Maybe they mean it *is* oil, but maybe they mean it's made from some kind of oil.

The chemical names are much more straightforward. Which is scary :)