Dee and Des Parrot: Baruvsope

I was approached by a company called So, Pleasure! and asked if I’d like to review one of their products. It’s called a baruvsope, and it’s to replace the pump-action handwash that you have in your bathroom. It’s meant to be more natural, and apparently it dates back centuries. It originated in ancient Persia, hence the exotic name, but at one time its use was widespread throughout Europe. My mum says she remembers it from her childhood.

Well, the baruvsope comes in a neat little packet, with instructions. You need a little dish to put it in, and I can see why that would be – it does leave a bit of a mess on the side of the basin. I tried the simple use first, which involves an action where you wet your hands, and then, holding the baruvsope between your hands, you rub them back and forth. Eventually you get a lather, and it smells nice. Then you have to put it down again, in the dish, and rinse off the lather. For more advanced users, there’s a movement that they described as ‘like rolling a fish over and over in your hands’, and this gets the lather going more quickly, but I didn’t master that. The baruvsope got very slippery, and kept leaping out of my hands.

So my verdict. On the plus side, it did leave my hands smelling nice, and I like the idea of the little china dish beside the basin, to add a touch of old-worldly charm to a bathroom. Baruvsope comes in different colours and fragrances, and they can be as exotic as you like. Looking through the So, Pleasure! Catalogue, I liked the look of the French Carbolique and the Egyptian Kohl Ta’ar. They sounded very sensuous and romantic.

On the minus side, I’m not sure I could relax as a mother, without the peace of mind that comes with using my anti-bacterial handwash or my alcohol-based hand sanitiser gel. I suppose if I had a baruvsope, I would probably wash with the handwash first, and then use the baruvsope afterwards, to give a nice fragrance to my hands. But as anyone with a baby will tell you, time for life’s little luxuries is scarce and I’m not sure I would really ever get into this habit. I don’t see it catching on with mums, to be honest.

So my conclusion is that I might buy a baruvsope as a novel gift for a friend, an intriguing peek into a world of luxury items that time has forgotten, but I don’t see myself as a regular user.