The Safest and Easiest Way to Store Soap in Our Child's Shower

 Now, bear with me, y'all.  I know this picture looks weird, at best, and kinda gross, at worst but it's harmless and a really good way to store soap in the shower, especially for kids.  So give me the benefit of the doubt and read on, OK?

What you are looking at is a bar of soap, inside a nylon knee high (pantyhose) that is tied onto the shower head in our bathroom.  I know what's on your tongue - WHY?!  It's a smart idea I learned from my Aunt Marge decades ago.  You know when a bar a soap gets down to the end, all thin or broken into a couple of pieces?  Either you can't get enough lather out of it because it's so small or you don't get the chance to get lather from it because you can't keep it in your hands.  Well, back in the days before liquid hand soaps and body washes, my Aunt Marge would gather those little soap nubs up, throw a few (or a bunch) into a leg she'd cut off an old pair of pantyhose and tie it to the shower head. She hated to waste those soap nubs and if she put them together she'd have a decent sized bar of soap.  In the shower, you grab the soap at the bottom of the pantyhose in your hands, pull it into the stream of water, soap up your hands and wash away.  I guess it's Aunt Marge's DIY version of soap on a rope.

In our house, it's the best solution for soap in a child's shower or tub and I'll tell you why.  A wet bar of soap rarely stays in place on the corners of your tub or on the built-in soap dishes.  A bar of soap that slides off the tub rim or soap dish can hurt the foot or toes of a child.  The child might even instinctively pick that foot up, throwing themselves off balance and falling.  If a bar of soap falls onto the floor, a child could accidentally step on it, slipping and falling.  It's also hard for little hands, learning to clean themselves, to keep hold of a wet bar of soap.  I know it can be enjoyable for a child to play with a bar of soap and slip it out of their hands over and over; I did it many times myself.  But it can also frustrate a child who wants to be able to do things for themselves.  If your child is not into showers but takes baths, you could tie this soap holder onto the faucet or the turn-the-water-on-and-adjustment-the-temperature thingy and let it hang down into the tub below the faucet.  We've tried body washes with B, but if the hubs or I are not in the bathroom, portioning out the body wash, a 16 oz bottle would be empty within a week.  And there is so much freedom in having a child who can go up, shower, dry off and get in PJs all by himself!

Here's a close-up of my bar of Olay soap.  See?  It's not scary!  How can anything that smells so nice, gets you clean and contains moisturizers be weird or gross?  As I said, this is my shower and a knee high comes down low enough for me.  In a smaller person's shower, a leg cut from a pair of old pantyhose should be used to hang low enough for kids to reach.  (Our bathroom has a window in it and is very bright. B's bathroom is darker and the pictures didn't turn out as well.)

Oh, and if the soap shelf on shower organizers works in your house, great!  It just didn't work in our shower.  The hubs and I each have our own soap and when we put one bar back on it, the other one always fell off.  And if you're wondering, we don't use separate soaps because we don't like to share/.  His is a special facial soap and he uses body wash for the rest of him.  I prefer using moisturizing bars instead of body wash.