An Unbiased Review of Dr. Squatch Soap – Awful Adverts, Brilliant Product

Research suggests we’re exposed to thousands of adverts a day, but out of all of them, I would say I only find around 10% of them relevant to me. I often feel like Meta has me completely wrong. I like nice coffee, high-quality menswear, dogs, and music. What adverts do I get bombarded with? Mass-produced budget gym shorts by “Fabletics”, weird blackhead removal creams from China that could probably unblock a drain, and trainwreck mobile games.

That was until Dr. Squatch — a brand of organic American-made soaps and toiletries — came along, with their aggressive, pervasive, and cringe-worthy advertisements. I’m reasonably into skincare, but not so much that I want someone trying to sell me soap numerous times across my day. Especially on the basis that said soap will make me more of a man.

“Stop destroying your balls with shower gel” screams the actor, whilst being paid to viciously lather up the brand’s soap bar over his naked torso. “Mmmm… If my man smelled like that, I would jump on him! It’s just so manly“, says a completely impartial volunteer in the street as they give a sultry look at the camera. “Smell like a man!”. “If you’re tired of sexual rejection, you gotta get yourself some Dr. Squatch, baby”. Yeah, you get the picture.

The ads became such a joke to my best bud and I that we started sending them to eachother over Instagram every time we were exposed to them (which was at least thrice a day across Insta and Youtube). Literally just to clown them. I don’t know what these guys’ advertising budget was, but it must have been pretty vast, ‘cos for months it has been everywhere for me and my peers.

Regardless, it’s safe to say Dr. Squatch had grabbed attention. My aforementioned best friend happens to work in advertising and insisted that while they were hilariously bad, the adverts had done their job perfectly. We both knew exactly what Dr. Squatch offered — American-made soap bars, made with natural ingredients, with a range of grit sizes for exfoliation and the promise of irresistible scents.

Review

An-Unbiased-Review-of-Dr.-Squatch-Soap---Awful-Adverts,-Brilliant-Product-Image-via-Manready-Mercantile

Image via Manready Mercantile

My birthday rolls around and my friend buys me a bar of Dr. Squatch soap for a laugh. We both laughed as I opened it, and he says “honestly, though dude, it’s pretty good”. As I said, I’m into skincare, so I tried the soap in the shower the next morning, and damn. This stuff slaps!

My friend got me one of the most commonly promoted scents – Wood Barrel Bourbon. The scent is pretty strong and doesn’t exactly smell like “barrel-aged bourbon” as promised by Dr. Squatch, but it offers a really nice, rugged aroma with hints of oud and sporty aftershaves. When I first smelled it I thought it smelled too strong, but after a shower or bath, you’re left with the right amount of smell lingering on your skin. The grit on this particular bar also provided some pleasant exfoliation through its use of Jimmy Corn and Sand, which felt even better through the thick, luxurious lather the soap created. Listen to me, I’m genuinely geekin’ over this Soap Bar.

As promised by the toxic adverts, my girlfriend immediately said “Wow, why do you smell so good?”. It felt scripted, but in truth, Dr. Squatch Soap Bars are just a really good product. Made in the USA using allegedly sustainable ingredients (I say allegedly because most of the bars contain palm oil), pleasant to use with a wide range of scents, with fully recyclable packaging.

The one gripe is that the bars aren’t 100% natural – they include synthetic parfum materials and some chemicals commonly found in soapmaking. But I’ll also go on record and say I’ve never really been happy with any soap bars before, including 100% natural ones. They often leave a sticky feel on my skin and I cannot smell the scent at all after using them. With Dr. Squatch, none of that stuff is a concern. I feel clean, smell great, and have bought an American-made cosmetic product that isn’t completely full of chemicals.

All in all, I’m giving this stuff a solid 8/10 and will definitely be buying some other scents — most likely the Cold Brew Cleanse which uses coffee from a roastery run by firefighters that donates a portion of its proceeds to supporting injured first responders and firefighters.

Dr. Squatch Soap products are available at Manready Mercantile with prices starting at $7.