POTIONS AND LOTIONS

I am not a fan of Ivory soap or Jergens lotion. They are products that have been around for a long time.  Both were prevalently used when I was a kid some 40 + years ago.   I will give both companies kudos though.   They haven't seemed to jump on the morphing of products bandwagon like other companies.  What they are has basically stayed the same for years and years. Maybe a bit of packing changes and an addition here or there.   But recognizably their brand has remained constant. I still don't like either of them.   It's merely preference.   Ivory soap always left a weird  film on my skin - wax.   The scent is odd.   Nothing about that soap, either in bar or liquid form, appeals to me.   The original white packaging with blue print was so bland it went beyond its motto of "pure" into ineffective and dull!   Jergens lotion must have been created by someone who had no sense of smell.   The old original formula was comparable to the pungency of Old Spice.   Once applied to your hands you could not get away from that offensive smell.   It was a smell combination of old lady scents and some sort of medicinal tincture.   My Grandma Cherry always had Jergens lotion as her moisturizer.  I'm sure she used up a bottle from time.  Though, it appeared to never move a smidgen from its place in the bathroom cupboard or ever run out.  That bottle remained exactly the same for my whole childhood years.  I should love that smell of Jergens lotion as I loved my Grandma Cherry very deeply, but I just don't.  Lava soap is another marvel.  Decades before there were dermatologists were as common as a family physician, there was Lava soap.  Previous to microdermabrasion procedures and products, Lava soap ruled.  It was comprised of lye, ground up sandpaper, oatmeal, drywall dust, crushed glass held together with the like of a mud.  It left the water a murky gritty sludge color.  Both sets of grandparents and my own parents usually had a bar of Lava soap somewhere in the house.  It could scrub off dirt from hands after farming, gardening, or working on a coal furnace.  It could permanently remove the smell of gasoline from your hands along with the layer of epidermis at the same time.  I love Lava.  It was and still is a bit of mystery in bar form.  I like products that have uses well beyond their original design and purpose.  Parents, who of you haven't tried to figure out how to get a permanent marker mustache off little Billy.  Might I suggest a scrub down with LAVA soap, a second washing with IVORY and a coating of JERGENS lotion designed to soothe the 2nd degree burn created by using LAVA soap on a 4 year old's skin.