E-Know soap bag

For those of you that have read my previous post on the Tabitha Eve Soap Saver, you’ll be familiar with my quest to find a solution for storing and using solid soap bars that prevented them turning into a squishy lump of mush.

For those of you who haven’t seen that post yet, it’s linked at the bottom of the page.

For those of you who haven’t had a chance to check out that post yet, feel free to take a look!

But for now, onto my next discovery, the E-Know soap bag. I stumbled across the E-Know soap bag while trawling through an Amazon search for replacement options for my Tabitha Eve soap saver. I had never heard of the brand before but was drawn in on several points;

The soap bags are made of sisal, which is one of the strongest renewable and sustainable natural fibres

2. The product pack includes x4 soap bags, which is handy if you have numerous family members trying to live more eco-friendly lives, or you know, if like me you have more than one bar on the go at any given time…

3. The price – at £4.99 for a pack of 4, this was a cheaper option than a single Tabitha Eve soap saver purchased at full price.

4. The reviews – This product scores a 4.5 out of Amazon and has nearly 2000 reviews. Now I know we should all take Amazon reviews with a pinch of salt due to the nefarious practice of sellers purchasing fake reviews to promote their products, but I did make sure to trawl through a few to sanity check whether I felt the reviews were legit or not.

With this in mind, I decided to “take a punt” and give them a go! I mean for £4.99, they’d have to be pretty awful for this to feel like a bad purchasing decisions.

First impressions…

The 4 soap bags arrived in the obligatory oversized Amazon packaging, which to be fair, as I made this purchase as part of a larger order, didn’t frustrate me too much as there were several items delivered as a single package, but the soap bags themselves were packaged in a small cardboard box with no additional plastic packaging, WIN!

I noticed on first inspection that the material of the soap bags seemed much more robust than what I was expecting, which was positive in one aspect, but a little concerning in another. I was hopeful that this would mean the soap bags would hold up under use for a longer period of time and maybe wash up well, but was concerned as to whether the material would be rough on the skin or allow the soap bar inside to lather up well enough.

In the image below you can see the E-Know soap bag underneath an Ethique soap bar for scale and a peek at the sisal material.

I also really liked that the soap bags had a little wooden ball for opening, closing and tightening the opening of the soap bag, which I felt would be super useful for when a soap bar is well used and starting to get quite small, or if a number of soap bar scraps are being used up all at once. We don’t want our soap bars falling out mid use and skidding around the shower floor now do we? 😉

Overall, for £4.99 for 4 bags, it seemed like a good bargain initially at least. I promptly grabbed one and swapped out my old Tabitha Eve soap saver for the E-Know.

Final thoughts…

The E-Know soap bag impressed me in a number of ways…

The soap bag was big enough for me to fit a number of different soap bar brands into. I could fit Dr Bronner’s, Gruum’s and Ethique soap bars in the bag easily, all without damaging the bars themselves or stretching the soap bag.

The material stood up really really well to regular use. I didn’t notice any fraying or stretching of the material as I used it. It also didn’t seem to get too overly clogged with soap residue and dried out pretty well in between uses.

IT. DID. NOT. SCRATCH. OR. IRRITATE. MY. SKIN!! This was a number one concern of mine when I first inspected the bags after they arrived. With the sisal material being a little more “rough” than the cotton Tabitha Eve soap saver, I was concerned that it might scratch my skin slightly, and seeing as I have been prone to somewhat sensitive skin over the last two years, I wanted to avoid causing any additional irritation. I was very pleasantly surprised to discover on use, that the E-Know soap bag softened up during use and didn’t scratch or aggravate my skin. In fact, it provided a light physical exfoliation as it passed over the skin, Seeing as I am not a fan of multi-step routines, this was an unexpected benefit, seeing as I am not about to start using additional exfoliating scrubs as part of my early morning or evening showers (incidentally, less products = less product waste!).

All the soap bars I used the E-Know soap bag with were able to lather relatively equally to using them alone, some better than others. Although based on my review series on soap bars, this was more to do with the individuals bars ability to lather, rather than anything specifically to do with the E-Know soap bag. You can check out my Swapping bottles for bars post series on my Sustainable Living blog page.

The soap bag also washed up pretty well and even withstood a machine wash in with my usual laundry. This made the E-Know soap bag really easy to maintain, as it didn’t require any special handling or approach to cleaning.

There was only one area in which the E-Know soap bag could have performed a little better, and I’m being really very picky here… I found that once a soap bar had been used to the point of only scraps being left, they would almost glue themselves to the material, and if left to dry before replacing with a new soap bar, you would have to wet the soap bag to be able to prise it apart. It wasn’t a huge issue, but just something I noticed that wasn’t quite perfect about the user experience.

I am really pleased with the E-Know soap bags and I am still using my original purchase pack of 4 quite happily. For the price I have found them to be an absolute bargain, and unless something catches my eye, I will not be looking for a replacement any time.

If you have used the E-Know soap bag, let me know your thoughts and experiences in the comments below!