June 24, 2004
CINCINNATI — Consumer giant Procter & Gamble today announced a new product enabling consumers to maintain the cleanliness of traditional bar soaps.
“For years our customers have complained that the stickiness of in-use bar soaps attracts un-appealing hair and dust adhesions” notes P&G spokesman Ron Neufchatel. “Our own researchers have discovered in the lab that these bar soaps may also be among the most pathogenic objects in the household. They act like fly-traps for the very bathroom and kitchen germs they are meant to wash off. Sure, they get the germs off your hands, but, on subsequent washings, can reintroduce the same germs. Bathtubs into which in-use soaps fall can fill with rapidly-replicating germs in a matter of minutes.”
Until recently, dispenser-based liquid soaps were the only solution for the germ-aware. But P&G’s new Metasoap enables consumers to again enjoy traditional bar soaps worry-free. Handsoap Industry Association of America spokeswoman Maude Freed welcomed the new product, declaring it a “boon to a much-maligned industry.” “Most people don’t realize that the traditional craft of soapmaking has fallen on hard times. Metasoap may revive a nearly lost art.”
“The simple pleasures of a rich, scented bar of soap need no longer be stigmatized by the risk of serious, debilitating bacterial infection. To enhance your soap’s safety, simply wash it after each use with Metasoap” declares P&G’s promotional material.
Metasoap comes in three handy, unscented forms: liquid pump, spray, and, yes, bar. It seems that the peculiar germ and lint-retardant properties of Metasoap make it possible to wash your bar of soap with a bar of Metasoap.
Consumer watchdog group Poison Soap Watch cautioned that Metasoap has not yet been tested in independent labs, but welcomed the product as a first step in reconciling the public-health concerns presented by the “omnipresent threat of germ-soaked soap” with the “important business interests of soapmakers and the soap industry.”