Lava Hand Soap New Bars Have Moisturizer By Joan Young on Jun 25, 2009 - Updated Oct 15, 2011

Lava bar soap has been a standard for heavy-duty hand cleaning for decades. Now moisturizer is added to make it less drying.

I've always kept a bar of Lava hand soap by the kitchen sink, as did my parents before me. It is known as a hand soap with pumice, for heavy-duty hand washing, and has been manufactured since 1893! Unless your hands were exceptionally greasy (in which case you probably need some specialized grease cleaner), Lava would do the trick and clean them up well. However, the trade off was that it was very abrasive and drying to the skin.

Now the company has added moisturizers to the bar, and I think it actually makes a difference. The soap seemed to clean the gunk off my dirty hands as well as ever, but it did not leave my skin quite so dry as previously. And the bar smells noticeably better too. I never cared much about that... I mean if you wanted to clean really dirty hands the scent wasn't the main issue. But if it is on your list of concerns this is an improvement.

I recommend a bar of Lava in every kitchen and laundry/mud room! It really works, and now it's even better.

I notice that Lava soap is now owned by the WD-40 company. The site says that it is “a member of the WD-40 company brand family.”

WD-40.com