Loofah soap is a bar with a slice of real loofah gourd set inside it, so the bar cleanses and exfoliates in one movement. The loofah is a dried vegetable, not plastic and not a sea sponge. You lather the bar directly on damp skin, let the texture do the work without pressing, and let both bar and loofah dry out fully between uses.
What is a loofah, actually?
A gourd. Luffa aegyptiaca is a climbing plant in the cucumber family, and if you pick the fruit young you can cook it like a courgette. Leave it on the vine until it dries, peel off the skin and shake out the seeds, and what remains is the fibrous vascular skeleton of the fruit, a stiff, honeycombed tube. It is, in other words, one more plant doing a job inside a bar of soap.
Two persistent confusions worth clearing up. It is not a sea sponge; nothing marine is involved. And it is not the plastic mesh puff sold in the same aisle, which is polyethylene netting and a completely different object with completely different habits.
How does the loofah get inside the bar?
The dried tube gets cut into discs across its width, so each disc shows the honeycomb in cross-section, which is why the pattern in the bar looks the way it does. The disc goes into the mould, and the melted glycerin base is poured around and through it.
When it sets, the fibre is held in place inside the bar. There's no weeks-long wait after that: my bars start from a glycerin base, so once a bar has set, it's ready. I explain the base in why I make my soap with a clear glycerin base.
Not every loofah bar of mine carries a slice, by the way. In the Balancing, Turmeric and Foot Care bars the loofah goes in as powder, mixed right into the soap, so you feel it as a fine texture instead of a honeycomb.
How do you use a loofah soap bar?
Straightforwardly, with one rule: let the texture do the work instead of your arm.
- Wet your skin and wet the bar.
- Rub the bar directly on the skin in slow circles — no washcloth, no puff, they defeat the point.
- Use light pressure. The fibre is stiff enough that leaning on it is how people give themselves a scraped patch.
- Rinse the skin, then rinse the bar itself so no lather dries in the honeycomb.
- Stand it on a dish that drains, on its edge if it will balance, so air gets to both faces.
Where to use it is the other half of the question: shoulders, back, elbows, knees, heels, all fine. The face is the place to be careful: softer skin, and a fibre designed for a shin is a lot on a cheekbone. If you use it there at all, use it rarely and barely. How often to use it anywhere is a separate question with its own answer.
Is the loofah in the bar the same as a shower loofah?
Same plant, different situation, and the difference is the one that matters. A hanging loofah or a plastic puff is a damp object that stays damp, holds skin cells and lather in its mesh, and never fully dries between uses. That is what makes people uneasy about them, and reasonably so.
A disc embedded in a bar is surrounded by soap and is rinsed clean by the act of using it, and it dries at the same rate the bar does. It also has a fixed lifespan. It's used up along with the soap around it, where a puff hangs in the shower for a year. That is the honest advantage of the format.
Does the loofah scratch?
It can, if you press, and it is meant to feel like something. A fresh dry disc is stiffer than one that has been wet a few times; the first use is the scratchiest. Wet the bar and give it ten seconds before it touches your face.
Skin that runs sensitive or reactive should keep any embedded-fibre bar for the body and leave the face out of it. There is no prize for exfoliating something that is already unhappy.
What do you do when only the loofah is left?
Near the end, the soap wears down to a thin layer around the disc and you're left holding a soapy sponge. It still works. It lathers from what's left in the fibre for a good few washes. When it stops lathering, that disc is plant material and it composts.
The alternative, if you'd rather not fight with a sliver: keep the last piece for hands at the kitchen sink, where the roughness is useful and nobody's face is involved.
Which one should you start with?
The plainest of them, if you've never used an embedded-fibre bar: the Rose & Calendula Loofah Soap. The rest of the format lives in Loofah Soaps, and if what you actually want is the loofah on your feet, the Intensive Foot Care Set pairs it with the step that comes afterwards. Two more places you'll find loofah on my shelf: the Cleopatra Loofah Soap comes with its own slice of biodegradable loofah, separate from the bar, and the foot soap has loofah powder mixed in with Damask rose.
Cosmetic products. Not intended to diagnose, treat, cure or prevent any disease.