Soap
I know it’s been a while since my last post, but I figured if anyone needed a holiday, well, it most likely wasn’t me, but I took one anyway - so sue me.
I was washing my hands in the bathrooms of a wonderful establishment called the Dux in Christchurch, and saw that they had opted for liquid soap dispensers. Whilst reflecting on this choice, I noticed that the soap that it dispensed was pink. Pink?
Now how the hell did they come up with that colour? One of my friends suggested something along the lines of the pink colouring being seen as a pure cleansing colour. I think that’s bollocks. Why does it have to have any colour? I doubt that the choice of colour has some huge psychological effect on the person washing their hands.
Although imagine how much fun it would be to fudge the results of a test to see what effect the colour of the soap has on the person washing their hands:
Our preliminary findings suggest several interesting trends:
-When blue soap was used, people were 78.25% more likely to return from the bathroom more depressed.
-When green soap was used, people were 52% more likely to vote for the Green Party, or possibly Family First. It was difficult to get any sense out of them anyway.
-When black soap was used, people were 98.25% more likely to return from the washroom wearing mascara, studded belts and black skinny-leg jeans. Over 99% felt an unreasonable desire to set up a MySpace account.
-When pink soap was used, 84% of people returned at least 32% more iffeminite and in 76% of cases wanted to have deep and meaningful conversations with the people who were present.
I’m sure the “findings” would go on, and -after weighing up all the pros and cons of the different colours- decide that pink was the colour that was the best for society at large.
Either that or the pink pigment they put in the soap is the cheapest. But who am I to guess?
January 6th, 2007 at 1:29 am
you know they say that 60% percent of the time, soap works everytime!
January 6th, 2007 at 3:26 am
And white soap is altogether too pure for society at large.
January 6th, 2007 at 8:39 am
I’m guessing it’s pink to match the lovely “rose amongst the chemicals” scent they’ve also popped in the mix…
January 6th, 2007 at 2:00 pm
or because anything else is just simply unnatural and just plain unethical
January 6th, 2007 at 3:15 pm
I did see blue soap once and it freaked me right out. don’t worry, i still used it… but I didn’t feel nearly as clean.
January 7th, 2007 at 4:45 pm
obviously the guy who invented the soap was just a homo. Nah just jokes I just wanted to be a tosser. What the hell is your email again Will? I’ve forgotten already. I’m sure it should be on this site somewhere but can’t be arsed looking so I thought i’d just post a stupid post that everyones gonna read and wonder who this guy is. So read this and email your email to me.
January 8th, 2007 at 1:34 am
Guess what Will?! We now have liquid soap dispensers in our theatres - and yes, the soap is pink! FYI the liquid soap on campus used to be blue (back in the day), and temporarily went white, so expect a “new improved” colour sometime soon! Anyway, hope your holiday is going well, and i’m glad to see you already got censured for your gross misunderstanding of Christmas! PS> the stuff we use to wash at first aid is also pink - i’m fairly sure it’s so one doesn’t think about drinking it (and everyone knows blue is for toilet cleaning!) PPS> i did go firefighting!
January 8th, 2007 at 2:11 am
you were probably depressed from the colour and the trauma of not having pink soap!
btw the soap is coloured pink for cleaning purposes.
January 8th, 2007 at 9:44 am
Dave, how the hell does a soap being pink help it clean? Surely they can make it any colour they like?
January 8th, 2007 at 1:49 pm
LMR, the ever-courageous fire-fighter/ambo chick, how was it all up there?!
Yeah, the Christmas article was a bit of a hash-up really, a little embarrassed about that one!
And who the hell thinks about drinking soap? Silly people, but I suppose the pinkyness would put me off drinking it…hmmm.
January 8th, 2007 at 2:48 pm
well, whilst working in the cleaning industry for 7 years you get to learn little things about majority of bathrooms having white tiles to make the place look clean, but makes cleaning up old white or clear soap very hard, the blue lights used all over the show tend to hide your veins and also make it hard to see the blue soap… pink, unlike many other colours, is a more widely accepted colour for soap for psychological (ie most sane ppl realise that pink liquids don’t go in your orifaces) and practical purposes.
and at the end of the day, if your a cleaner, and your the guy who fills the soap dispenser, you wanna make sure you can clean the stuff off the sink and floor and roof and walls and taps and the toilets and where ever all the crazy ppl want to put it (like orifaces)
January 8th, 2007 at 2:48 pm
it took me 0.783 seconds to generate this page.
January 8th, 2007 at 2:51 pm
and pink soap is really cheap
January 8th, 2007 at 3:13 pm
Sure soap can be made any color, most things can, but the color does have an effect on how well it cleans. By analogy, lets consider Margarine.
“The key to slowing margarine sales (and protecting the established dairy industries), however, emerged as restricting its color. Margarine naturally appears white or almost white: by forbidding the addition of artificial colouring-agents, legislators found that they could keep margarine off kitchen tables.”
Wiki Entry
This quote in particular has relevance to what Dave has said above: “In several [USA] states, the legislature enacted laws to force margarine manufacturers to add pink colorings to make the product look unpalatable…”
January 8th, 2007 at 3:21 pm
Whoops, I used the wrong slashes above, anyway, to continue my thoughts…
Pink has been engrained in our society as the color to make things clean, in particular by using soap. If soap were to, say, be black do you think you would use it to clean. Of course you wouldn’t. Just like with the margarine above where people were more likely to enjoy the taste when it’s yellow, so are people more likely to use pink soap, and attempt to use this pink soap to clean more.
Cleanliness is in part a matter of perception. And soap being pink makes people believe it to be cleaner. Believing it to be cleaner people use it more, thus things become cleaner. It’s a cycle, and it works. Trust me.
January 8th, 2007 at 4:04 pm
FA ShiZZLe MaH NiZZLe
January 9th, 2007 at 2:03 pm
Mike you sure do your research! And all to reply to my undirected ramblings about soap! Crikey! So basically we’re all agreed that the only reason for it to be pink is the superficial psychological reason, and not for any enhanced cleaning properties?
January 9th, 2007 at 3:33 pm
no pink cleans faster… like red cars
February 15th, 2007 at 12:24 pm
This entry might be a bit late..but i did want to add that i’ve seen black liquid soap!! I’t was weirrd.. and for a sec or two, i just held it in my hand thinking “its this thing going to really clean my hands…?!?” But i used it anyway.
February 15th, 2007 at 3:42 pm
It’s okay sylv, your comment is only a month later than the previous one!
Black soap? Black soap? That’s just silly! where the hell’d you use that? And did it clean your hands? I’m intrigued!
April 25th, 2007 at 11:06 am
did you find your black soap wil?