When in search of really good soap we soon find that certain soaps are very harmful. Soaps made from "soda ash," as nearly all hard soaps are, tend to dry and harden the skin, and if used often produce bad effects.
Soda soap does well enough for many purposes, and if it is not used often, and the skin is strong, no great harm may be done; but when it has to be used frequently, or is applied to a tender sensitive skin or to parts from which the outer skin has been removed, it will not do at all.
For years we had been seeking for somebody who could make us hard soap without any mixture of soda. Once, when in Belfast, we spoke of this to a friend. He took us to a soapmaker, to whom we mentioned our desire. This gentleman at once saw what we wanted, and told us frankly that he could not make the soap that would suit us, and that he knew only one firm in the trade who could do so. But he assured us that that firm made a pure hard soap which we should find exactly suitable to our purpose. Thus we were introduced to the manufacturers of M'Clinton's soap. This firm, we found, made the very soap we had been so long in search of.
It is made (by a process which is, we believe, a secret in possession of this firm alone) from the ash of plants, and so it may truly be said that it is Nature's soap.
There is something in the composition of this soap which makes it astonishingly curative and most agreeable on the skin. Lather made from it, instead of drying and so far burning the skin of those using it, has the most soothing and delightful effect.
As yet we do not feel able to explain this, not being sufficiently chemical for the work, but we have tried the matter, and feel assured that this soap is by a long way the best for cleansing and curative purposes. Even soap which possesses the same chemical composition lacks the properties of that made from plants, a fact not without parallel, as chemists know. The substances of the plant ash differ in some unknown way from even those chemically the same, which have been artificially produced.
We trust that our noticing the thing in this way will have the effect of calling attention to the whole question of soap-making and using. It is one of those questions on which great ignorance prevails. Many people judge toilet soaps by the perfume and price. If the former is pleasant, and the latter high, they consider they must be getting something specially suitable, and yet the soap itself may be very injurious. Before we had some cases of bad diseases of the skin arising from the use of certain soaps, it did not occur to us to think much of the difference between one sort and another. Hence we just said, "use lather from good soap." Now we see need for care as to the kind of soap used, and especially to warn against all soaps, however fine-looking, that burn the tender skin when lather made from them is much applied.
Very especially is it important to distinguish between the qualities of soaps used on the sensitive skins of infants and invalids. If you ever wash an infant in strongly caustic soap, you may look for a state of discomfort in the child which will make it restless and miserable without your being able to tell how it is so. You may ascribe to unhappy "temper" what is due to the bad soap which you have put on the skin. So with sensitive invalids, when they have to be washed or soaped, so as to keep off or heal the bedsores which are apt to appear on them, it is easy to see how much difference there must be between the effect of a caustic soap and one really and delightfully soothing.
M'Clinton's soap is the very best and most lasting of the soaps we know for washing purposes, so that in recommending it we are not promoting the use of a merely medical thing, but of one for ordinary purposes of a genuine and excellent character. Every grocer ought to have it in stock, and if it is sought after with some vigour it will be soon brought in general trade within reach of all. It is not one of those things that flame on railway stations and on the covers of magazines. The makers are most quiet, unpretending men, and one would think almost afraid to take their light from under a bushel. But they are in possession of a most valuable secret in knowing how to make this soap.
Several soap-makers claim to be makers of this soap, insisting that theirs is as good as M'Clinton's. It is far cheaper. Well, we put it to the test of use. It is not the same thing at all. It won't do, nor will it nearly do: the soda is there beyond all doubt. We are compelled to recommend our readers to make sure that they get M'Clinton's soap, with this name stamped upon it.