Muji- Mandarin

So, I've failed miserably in my blog start promise of updating this weekly in a timely and professional manner. Life tends to get in the way of mad ramblings about soap. Apologies. That bar of Pears lasting 3 weeks didn't really help either.

I don't know if you have the shop Muji wherever you are. Muji sell Japanese designed homewares, which seem to mainly consist of white boxes for sorting your office junk into neat piles, loofahs, and plaid slippers. They've got a couple of shops in London and used to have a branch in Reading (I think it closed a while ago though). This soap is available in several fragrances including avocado and lemon.

Price- 99p for 100gr

First Look- slightly more transparent than Pears with a much more luminous orange glow. It's not particularly natural looking.

Dry Feel- Extremely hard, it's like holding a block of wood. I couldn't get it to melt on contact with fingers at all.

Smell- sort of like an orange flavoured gummy bear, flat fruit tones which feel a little artificial, and a soapy but somehow not fresh. It stuck to my skin unlike any of the other soaps I've reviewed.

As a body soap- again, this was hard to melt on bare damp skin. It will melt under a stream of water to produce a few bubbles, but somehow it just felt cheap. It left my skin feeling okay, but after a few days of use I noticed my skin was drier than usual and had some scaly pre-eczema flare ups.

As a hand soap- the strong scent would probably make it a good candidate for a kitchen soap. It feels pretty harsh too so might be good at shifting heavier stains from hands.

As a face soap- very drying. Not recommended.

Overall- I don't know what else I should really say about this soap. If you haven't worked out by now, I didn't like this soap and won't be buying it again. If you've got stronger skin than mine or work in a coal mine or tar pit, maybe this is the soap for you. Happily for me, but maybe not for you if you like it, the soap disappeared surprisingly quickly. Maybe that's the benefit of currently being crammed in my student room with another poor soul.