A glycerine bar soap called Clearly Natural looked interesting, so I gave it a try. As the bar wore down, some things about it stood out. I contacted the manufacturer, Beaumont Products, to see if this was natural…

Dear Soapologists:

I’ve recently switched soap brands and now use Clearly Natural Soap. The last soap irritated my skin, which irritated me, and I saw no point in walking around irritated all day.

While I like your soap, there are two things about it that irritate me, and if you remember from the previous paragraph, I’m trying to get away from any soap irritation whatsoever. As Clearly Natural Soap gets near the end (of the bar, not my rear), it becomes harder to get any lather out of it. I rub it all over my body, which I enjoy the feeling of, however, I’m not sure I’m getting totally clean because it’s not soaping up. I understand you can’t get blood out of a stone, but you should be able to get soap out of a bar. Where does the lather go?

The other problem is even more irritating. As you can see from the enclosed photo, the soap bar has broken into several little pieces, which look like creepy little tongues. It’s very difficult for an adult to clean fully-grown body parts with little slivers of soap, which aren’t even producing lather. How come your soap bars split like a group of atoms, especially since they can’t regenerate?

Thank you for helping me clean up these issues along with the rest of my body.

Contacting Clearly Natural Soaps was a wash out. No Reply.

Final Thoughts: Being a new customer that expressed liking Clearly Natural Soap, it would have been nice if Beaumont Products treated me more like dirt. That’s right, dirt! As soap manufacturers, at least they pay attention to dirt, but they didn’t pay any attention to me. Was my letter too clean? Maybe they would have responded if I had included dirty words.

The issues and questions presented in my letter were legitimate. Plus, photographic evidence of those creepy little tongues were included. When a company doesn’t respond to a customer that clearly and naturally isn’t happy, it’s the equivalent of sticking their corporate tongue out at them. Aside from being rude, it can also be unsanitary, so perhaps they should consider washing their own mouths out with soap.

The Clearly Natural Soaps website says, “In fact, we are so sure that you will love our unique line of products, we offer an unconditional 90-day guarantee on everything we sell.” That’s terrific! Now if they would only guarantee a response when you don’t love their products, we might get somewhere. More than 90-days have passed and the only thing that is guaranteed is my short relationship with this company and its products has gone down the drain. The soap was actually pretty good until it stopped lathering and started going to pieces, but customer service definitely needs to clean up their act.

Finally, always give consumer support the benefit of the doubt and a chance to fix the situation. Although, no matter what guarantees come with a product, you won’t know if they’re going to give you the slip unless you Write The Company.