Review - Idee Pure, Athlete SAS soap

Summary
Generous sized and long lasting soap marketed at people who train sports. This bar was very pleasant smelling, long lasting and surprisingly foamy compared with many soaps I have tried before. The embedded 'seeds' didn't do much for me except feel a bit annoyingly scratchy but apart from that, a fantastic cleansing item with neat ziplock carry case.

Disclosures
I have no personal or business connections with this company. All views expressed in this report are my own opinion.




Introduction
The topic of cleanliness and hygiene crops up regularly among grappler forums. Microbial skin infections are a constant worry due to the high level of personal contact among practitioners. Soap bars aimed at grapplers and mixed martial arts students have appeared on the market recently. Many make claims that their product contain natural oils and extracts that destroy harmful microbes found on the skin.

In a previous review I looked at Defense Soap and Fight Soap (click here for review), two US based soap brands. This, the Athlete SAS soap is made by a UK company (Manchester).

The Athlete SAS is packaged within a ziplock case - designed to make it easier to transport within the gym bag. Inside is the soap itself and a branded piece of card. I didn't measure the soap but it is roughly around three and a half inches in length and quite thick too.

The ingredients include: Aqua, Propylene glycol, Sodium stearate, Sodium laureth sulphate, Glycerin, Sucrose, Sodium cocoate, Sodium xylene sulphonate, Stearic acid, Tetrasodium EDTA, Tetrasodium etidronate, Mentha arvensis (peppermint oil), Melaleuca alternifolia (tea tree oil), Eucalyptus globulus (eucalyptus oil), Citrus limonium (lemon oil), Lavandula officinalis (lavender oil), Cymbopogon flexuosus (lemongrass oil), Rosmarinus officinalis (rosemary oil), Limonene, Linalool, Citral, Geraniol, Simmondsia chinensis (jojoba oil), Papaver somniferum (poppy seeds), CI42090, CI19140

The aroma when the soap is both dry and wet is pleasantly strong. There definitely is a distinct tea tree oil x lemony scent to it. Handling the soap when dry it feels very waxy and leaves a slight surface residue on the fingers. When wet, the soap foams up quite noticeably - perfect for my area which has very hard water. In hard water areas, standard supermarket brands of soap tend to lack much foaming ability and the water develops scum easily. The Athlete SAS did not develop any scum.

The poppy seeds inside are annoying. I didn't much like the seeds I found inside the Fight Soap I reviewed and I don't like them in this soap. The alleged benefits are that they act as an abrasive to help remove dead skin cells and improve grip when wet.

In the shower, as mentioned before, the foaming agents do the job nicely and produce a fairly rich lather. Not as much as shower gel products but better than most soaps. Post wash, there is also none of the 'dry skin' feeling one experiences with soap due to the moisterisers within the Athlete SAS.

I was very impressed with the longevity of the soap. Sadly I didn't monitor how many washes it lasted. The owner states it is good for about 30 washes. I reckon I was able to get a few more than that myself.

Conclusions
The Athlete SAS is a very decent bar of soap. It's pretty big, smells great and does the job of washing your skin very well. It's roughly £5 a bar though, there is no getting away from the fact that it is expensive compared to supermarket soaps. That's mainly because of the expense of sourcing quality ingredients the owner tells me. It's interesting to browse around in the soap market sector online - there are premium bars made of similar essential oils can cost  loads. This one from Harrods for example costs £23 for one bar! Compare that with a popular High Street shop in the UK Holland & Barratt sells a basic tea tree oil soap for £1.49. The Athlete SAS contains a lot more ingredients so it makes sense it would cost more than basic tea tree oil soap. Whether you agree that £5 a bar (discounts for bulk orders) is worth the expense is up to you.

The Athlete SAS bar is available from the Idee Pure website.
They also have a Facebook page.