Soap

I mentioned previously that Warmi makes soap. Most of what they make is like industrial strength, brick-sized soap, probably for washing clothes or what have you. But one of their recent... inventions? Is... Paper Soap! Yes, very exciting I know.

I put the word inventions before a question mark because I have no idea if it's their invention or not, but it's the first time I've ever seen it. So allow me to present the coolest thing since sliced bread.

This soap comes in a little book, sort of like a match book, and in the inside, there's a whole bunch of what looks like paper. It is paper, but it has soap soaked into it, or something. I'm really not sure how they make it, but it's so cool. I tried it, actually, you just get the paper wet and it's all frothy and soapy. Weird. The downside is that the paper doesn't dissolve, you have to throw it away when you're done, but hey, there's usually garbages in bathrooms, right?

Anyways, why is this so amazing? From a development studies point of view, it's a really local solution to a local circumstance. Most public bathrooms around here lack soap (and usually toilet paper too - I try to avoid them), so they came up with a product for ladies to carry around in their purse so that they can clean their hands if there's no soap. Very interesting, and obviously something that most Canadians would never think of, because we're used to having soap available all the time. But from the point of view of a traveller, it's really cool too because you don't need to pack a wet slippery bar of soap into your toilettries bag - it's really portable. Anyways, this is what I learned at work.