aLightningbug

Zote laundry soap comes in both bars and flakes. Until a little over a year ago I wondered what kind of freak uses laundry bar soap.

And until a few months ago I’d never seen Zote flakes in person anywhere. That changed at a local Shoppers Food grocery store.



I didn’t buy it at first (I still had two bars at home), but I did take some photos. Yes, I am that lady — the one taking pictures of a box of soap flakes right there in aisle 12. Who’s the flake now?

Flakes are good … for folks looking to use real soap who are short on time. Like me! It’s basically pre-grated Zote bar soap. Instead of little grated curls of soap, Zote flakes are flat. But both bars and flakes have the same true-soap ingredients. 

There are a few down sides to Zote flakes.  

I can’t see rubbing the flakes on a stain to spot treat it – too hard. You’ll have to do that another way . 

While bars are super economical, flakes cost more. The picture on the box shows that a single box of Zote Flakes = 2 bars of Zote. See the little pictogram in the lower right on the back of the box, below? 



Flakes are  $2.79 at Shoppers Food and I can find Zote bars for $0.97 at Walmart. (They’re a dollar at Shoppers.) That means bars cost about 30% less than their flakier counterpart. Maybe closer to the price of Fels Naptha? Plus you can get a little arm workout when you grate Zote bars. Yay, exercise!

Upon even further comparison, how exactly can Zote Flakes claim that 1 box = 2 bars when each bar is 14.1 ounces and the entire box of flakes is only 17.6 ounces? The math seems wonky. Shouldn’t it be 2 x 14.1 = 28.2 ounces? 

Yes and no. 

The Zote Flakes are hard and dry. Like really really well cured soap. Zote bars are fairly soft. Think the consistency of warm malleable candle wax versus completely cooled hard chips of wax. 

Zote flakes probably have very little moisture compared to bars. I guess this might mean that two grated bars, if left to dry cure, maybe for months, could possibly end up weighing about as much as a box of Zote Flakes. 

The real test, though, would be to compare the cleaning power of each. I need to try that. 

And, just how well do Zote Flakes dissolve in water? I’ll have to test that too. As it is, I’ve been using a finer grater when grating laundry bar soap to speed dissolvabiliy. 

It’s good to try one box of flakes, though, right? It is a big win for a lot of people to avoid grating bars of soap. (Words I never thought I would type.)

Until I do some tests, please enjoy some photos of other laundry products I found near Zote flakes.

Lots of laundry products! But many of these are detergents rather than true soaps. And many of them aren’t in English so I’m not sure what they are or what they have in them, but it was fun to see some new items.



There are:

Humming birds …



Suazel … Suazul? Zuul? Should I be on the lookout for the Key Master (from Ghostbusters)?



A kinder gentler Gozer? 



Whoa! Yeah. Let’s just take a look at this adorable Foca laundry seal instead.



Much better.  I’ll just finish up with that.