Why the hell is that restaurants always buy the smelliest, most perfumey soap possible for their washrooms?! I don’t want my hands stinking like some old lady’s perfume when I eat my meal. Every time I put my hand close to my face in order to take a bite, all I can smell is the goddamned handsoap! Restaurants: Please! Stop using perfumey soaps and put in either unscented or fruity soaps ,like citrus or watermelon, for god sakes! Nobody enjoys the smell of those disgusting perfumey crap soaps!!
—Tired of My Food Tasting Like Perfume
This article appears in Aug 27 – Sep 2, 2009.
OP: I too, prefer fruity scented or unscented soaps when handling food. A little common sense goes a long way. What about food preparers who use the same soap when they use the washroom then return to the kitchen to prepare food for diners with perfumed hands? Common Sense 101: Food and perfume do not mix!
If you have such a problem with it why not just use purel if you come across a washroom containing only the dreaded scented soap? Problem solved!
OP here. So what am I supposed to do xox? Stick my nose up to the soap dispenser to see what it smells like first? Because as soon as that stuff is on your hand, it stinks. And how exactly am I supposed to CLEAN my hands? All Purel does is sanitize, not clean. And am I supposed to carry a bottle of Purel with me at all times? Guess I’ll just stick the bottle in my pocket and walk around with it all the time. That seems like a logical thing to do. Besides, Purel stinks too. Problem NOT solved. I have no problem with mildly scented soaps, but these days it seems that every restaurant is using the most god awful perfumey crap available. I’ve run enough restaurants in my time to know that the non-perfumey stuff doesn’t cost any more or less. Not a difficult switch to make.
Alright, OP, that’s the clear thing to do: rant on someone who commented. That’ll solve your issue!
Deal with it, cause they aren’t about to change the soap. It’s the cheapest alternative going, which is why establishments buy it. And if you’re of the determination that is ISN’T…i’d love to know what sort of places you ran.
Well then Never Wrong, why don’t you EAT AT HOME! It’s soap, and last I checked, people typically go to restaurants for good food, not good soap scent. Jesus.
Ask for a wet nap before you eat. They always have a light lemony scent =)
xox
So nobody’s suppose to go to a washroom at a restaurant. And if they do, they’re not suppose to wash their hands? What are the washrooms at restaurants used for then?
OP, I hate scanky soap too.
Personally I have found that if I stick my hands under my armpits for a few seconds AFTER washing with the perfumy soap that one cancels out the other and I can eat my meal in peace. :0)
adding perfume/scents to soap does not make it work any better… so why do it?
Never Wrong is right, stop fouling our food and assaulting our noses with stinky perfumed soaps.
ummmm… the savoury aroma of armpit sweat, such a gastronomical delight. i’m eating & sniffing myself as we speak, Bobby33… deeelicious!
I’m an avid hand-washer – at home, at work, at restaurants. I’m not germ-phobic, but I do credit the fact I rarely get sick to my frequent hand-washing.
Anyway, I can’t remember the last time the smell of the soap was so overwhelming that I could still notice it after a moment or two. Methinks the OP is being a touch dramatic, no? A little overly “scent”sitive?
(Cue the scent-sensitive tirade…)
I’m not saying that you shouldn’t ever use the washroom in a restaurant, I’m just saying that if you’re so easily offended by unpleasant soap, choose from one of the many alternatives that are possible and stop whining about it. It’s soap – its job is to clean and sanitize and as long as it’s doing that then I don’t really think it’s the end of the world if it has a slightly bad odour.
xox: I’m not complaining about a “slightly bad odour” as I’ve already stated. I’m talking about the uber-perfumey old lady smelling soaps. And FYI, soap does not sanitize, unless it is anti-bacterial soap. Soap just cleans.
Jennie: I’m not “scent”sitive at all. I actually think the whole “scent free” movement is a crock of shit. That doesn’t mean that I think people should be able to walk around having bathed in perfume/cologne, but we should be able to wear scents within reason. And as I stated above, I’m talking about the really perfumey/reeky soaps.
My favorite restaurant, the one I frequent the most (by a long shot), the one with a name related to Paternal Upper Lip Facial Hair, doesn’t have perfumey soap and their menu is quite reasonably priced. The straw that broke the camel’s back on this issue for me was the god awful perfumey soap at the steak restaurant that is named after a large barrel used to hold beer. I payed over $60 for my meal alone and they have to buy the cheapest/smelliest handsoap available. They pride themselves on being “high class”, so they should use better quality soap. End of story.
It’s 2009 and suddenly restaurants have only just started to use smelly soap or the OP has finally mastered the use of a knife and fork, taken off their bib and decided to join the grown-ups at the big table?
A certain restaurant that serves chicken and ribs, rhymes with miss ballet – provides a bowl of warm water with a slice of lemon in it to wash your paws – sensitive enough?
xox says, “It’s soap – its job is to clean and sanitize…”
umm, wasn’t that the OB’s point? it is a washroom after all, not a perfumery or cosmetics counter, so there’s no need to add unpalatable perfumes to the SOAP, especially when there’s food involved.
on the other ‘hand’, if you happen to like your digits to smell like perfume when you leave the restaurant loo, then BYOP ok, and allow the rest of us to enjoy/taste our meals as they were meant to be – sans parfume.
i do believe the best solution is the simplest,with that in mind,carry a bunch of those little square disposible wipes in either pocket or purse.wasn’t that easy now people.
your life must be so empty and shallow to complain about soap!…why are people in halifax so fixated over body scents and perfumes…they are still a legal product and i,for one,will never give into the scents’ police…maybe some young people should use it to cover the stink of b.o. and dirty hair…please use your energy to do good for society instead of constant whining about peoples personal choices in life…
I eat out WAY too much at different restaurants all the time and have never noticed any soap being so strong that I even noticed it. Maybe my nose died. But I do carry a tiny bottle of Purel in my purse at all times, and you can now buy their moisturizing kind that has a pleasant smell. After touching repulsive bus railings, door knobs, ATM/debit buttons, cash, lord knows what else….touching the tap on the bathroom sinks make it almost pointless to wash your hands anyway. I’m no germ phobe either, but just do not get the big deal here. I’d rather come out of a public bathroom reeking of perfumey soap than of the stinks that some people let loose in there. 🙂
for the most part, i absolutely agree with your rant about ‘personal choices in life’, Mentor… but a restaurant is open to the public, so even though YOU (personally) may enjoy the stench of smelly soaps while you eat, many others do not. and what about MY ‘personal choice’ to eat my meal with clean hands and no artificial scents?
look, by most people’s standards, food and perfumed soaps are an unpalatable combination at best, so restaurants (and public places in general) should opt for just the soap, minus the perfume.
and as i say, you can always bring your own perfumes/fragrances if you like your fingers to smell like they’ve been Febreze’d – while you eat.
In this day in age, it’s not at all unreasonable to carry around a small bottle of hand sanitizer – that’s why they make “pocket sized” versions. If you’re so easily offended by the smell of soap, why not keep some on you? The alcohol smell evaporates in 20 seconds or so. Problem solved.
If hand sanitizer works well enough for nurses to use before they treat the sick, surely it works well enough for Joe Public to use before cutting into a steak…
Tech, I don’t like Jazz music. So what happens when I go into a restaurant (i.e. public) and I can’t stand the music? Don’t I have the “personal choice” to eat my meal without having to listen to jazz?
sorry Jennie, i thought we were talking about SOAP? you know, about it spoiling the taste/smell of food, etc.
would you like to change the subject to ‘music’ now OR are you, as i suspect, just introducing some red herring (bullshit) argument to confound and derail the discussion?
some of you are brilliant at doing that, btw
Why bother to wash your hands at all?
A study done at Johns-Hopkins showed that by the time you have hauled up your trousers, re-positioned your skirt, tucked in your blouse etc etc, most of the fecal coliform bacteria and traces of shit have been deposited on your clothing anyway…
….where they will undoubtably lie awaiting a chance to leap onto fresh skin.
“If you’re so easily offended by the smell of soap, why not keep some on you?”
it’s not that we are offended by the smell of SOAP, Jennie, b/c soap doesn’t have a smell. it is the PERFUME – added to the soap – that we find unpalatable. why should i have to bring my own (naturally unscented) soap, when you, ms perfume lover, could simply bring your own fragrance(s) instead?
the issue is easily resolved, just don’t use perfumed soaps in restaurants or wherever there is food.
My point, Tech, was that once you start talking about “personal choice” in public, it’s a slippery slope.
One guy doesn’t like the smell of the soap. Another doesn’t like the music. Someone else finds the napkins scratchy. You find the bells on the door annoying. I think it’s a touch too warm…
See where I’m going? You can ALWAYS find fault. That’s why I find nit-picking about the smell of soap in the washroom a bit trivial.
Personally it is the toilet paper doing it’s best impression of birch bark which annoys me much more than smelly soap.
mr frosty – interesting point. and i’ve read there is a growing body of evidence that our obsessive hand ‘sanitizing’ and germophobia can actually be BAD for the overall health of our immune systems.
remember the old days… when kids just played in the dirt? back then, parents didn’t get freaked out by such nonsense, fearing their child might’ve picked up a few germs along the way (which probably even stimulated/strengthened their immune systems anyway).
nowadays, hand sanitizers are everywhere you go and flu pandemics are about to wipe humans off the planet… or so we are made to believe.
keep them constantly afraid – and they will do/buy everything they are told to
Jennie, i didn’t raise the ‘personal choice’ issue… Halifax Mentor did, so please take it up with him/her
but since we are still on the topic of soap, i don’t think it’s ‘nitpicking’ to expect my meal to be scent-free. my steak should actually smell/taste like a STEAK – not perfume – and THAT is the point i think you are so astutely avoiding here.
food and perfume do not mix, it’s that simple
“and what about MY ‘personal choice’ to eat my meal with clean hands and no artificial scents?”
Um, Tech? That line was taken from YOUR post. Maybe you weren’t the first to bring it up, but you sure jumped on the band wagon.
Like I said, I wash my hands all the time. With scented soap, with unscented soap, and occasionally, with hand sanitizer. I’ve washed my hands in plenty of restaurants. And never, not once, have the smell of the soap been so overwhelming that it lessened the enjoyment of my food.
So, like I also said, I think that anyone who’s getting their knickers in the twist about the smell of the soap is nit-picking. It’s my “personal choice” to come to this conclusion.
Basil Fawlty: You know what? I like you. You’re the kind of person that only posts on here to get a rise out of others. You never have any legitimate input to this forum. You just spout a bunch of crap meant to piss people off. You’re the kind of person that is so sad and pathetic that all you can do is try to make yourself feel better by making others feel worse. The knowledge that your existence is a meaningless and futile one makes my day so much better. Thanks for your contribution to my bitch! I appreciate your “input”.
You people really amaze me sometimes. Most of you have the inate ability to take a bitch and make it about something completely off topic. It really astounds me at times. Your lives suck so much that you have to take the topic and make it more about yourself. I hate smelly soap. I don’t want my hands smelling like some 90 year old woman’s perfume from the 60s. If you don’t like my bitch, FUCK OFF and come up with your own.
i countered Mentor with the ‘personal choice’ thing only to illustrate my point, that there is actually NO choice at all, unless there happens to be TWO soap dispensers in the washroom, scented & unscented. the perfume cannot be taken away after it has already been added to the soap, and if that is the only choice there is, then so much for my ‘personal choice’ to clean my hands – without Febreezing my hands at the same time.
but fair enough, Jennie, i get what you are saying.
i think we shall agree to disagree on the issue of smelly soaps (in restaurants), however.
I used the soap at a department store yesterday, and it smelled just like the anti-bacterial soap that the schools and hospitals used to clean up vomit with when I was a kid. I hope that was not the smell that accompanied your meal.
Actually, I haven’t smelled that smell in some time. I wonder if that soap is making a comeback with the threat of H1N1 Flu.
I know the soap you’re talking about NW — it’s pink, isn’t it? It smells AWFUL and yah, the scent doesn’t go away — it has to wear the fuck off. Even if you wash your hands with other soap you can still smell that shit. I doubt even bleach would get rid of the stink.
My suggestion? Get a little travel bottle and carry it with you (although it would be easiest if you had a purse, which I’m assuming you don’t :P) with some hand soap you like and just use that. I’m picky about what hand soap I use because I have sensitive skin (esp my hands in the winter) so I started bringing the ultra sensitive skin soap I use at home with me because that pink shit is ROUGH on the hands.
And you’re right — purell isn’t the be all and end all of hand cleansers. In fact, it kills the good bacteria along with the bad and can make one more prone to catching bugs and viruses as a result of the breakdown of your natural defenses. I actually cringe when I see “hand sanitizer” on school supply lists. It’s becoming a popular item, and while it *is* better than nothing if you’re in a pinch, nothing’s as good as washing your hands with soap and warm water for 30-60 seconds.
techcafe…it’s ONLY soap..get a grip…take a
reality pill…
Bobby33…I totally agree! Sandpaper disguised as toilet paper hurts me more than smelly soap (though it CAN be pretty awful!!).
Bring a travel pack of baby wipes, shoe_chick. The non alcohol, sensitive skin pampers wipes are *awesome*. I carry a pack in my purse so I don’t have to use that god awful sandpaper ass wipe.
Good tip, pk, thanks! Similar to my tip to the OP to use wetnaps instead of the smelly soap. I’ve found most restaurants have them. =)