The humble bar of soap: a heady concoction of vegetable or animal fats, perfumes and alkaline salts dating back at least as far as 2,800BC and ancient Babylon. Seldom dropped into casual conversation, often dropped on shower floors (the butt of many a faintly homophobic changing-room gag), unsexy, no frills. But now it seems simple savon is being left for ever on the shelf by us the beauty-product-fickle British public.
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