Joe Soap

JoeSoap.com (Product)
JoeSoap is a soap saver designed in the North East of England by JoeSoap Ltd. a family run business specialising in 'green and clean products'. According to the JoeSoap website the product can 'not only can it save soap, it can save you money'.

The Product: ‘JoeSoap’ the product is a plastic elliptical disc measuring approximately 8cmx5cm. On both sides the design incorporates a ridged edge, small protrusions and holes through the centre, all designed to aid the attachment of soap to JoeSoap.

The holes in the centre utilise the soap’s natural ability to adhere to itself on either side of the soap saver. This means you can build-up slivers of soap to a practical size, on both sides, for continual use and make the most out of your soap by not being wasteful by throwing old slivers away. JoeSoap can be reused endlessly by continuing to add soap slivers, or can be used with Joe’s handmade soap as a platform to combine any two fragrances of soap together, and interchange them at any time.

The JoeSoap website boasts 18 different fragrances of soap, which can be used in any combination, however suggest three box sets of ‘Fruit’, ‘Herb and Spice’ and ‘Tropical’.

The Business: JoeSoap Ltd is a family run eco-friendly company who believes that reusing soap can make a big impact on your environmental footprint, and hope that by being green and clean they can save the world resources in their own way. Based in North East England in County Durham, for the past two years they have been working as a team of Father, Son and Daughters to develop an idea into a product which could help save resources.

JoeSoap is a UK designed, manufactured and patented soap saver. The product development for JoeSoap, from invention, drawing, tooling and production of the JoeSoap itself, the mould, and the packaging all happen within a 10 mile radius of JoeSoap HQ. The only part of JoeSoap that isn’t sourced within County Durham is the soap, which is carefully being crafted in Lancashire.

Slang
"Joe Soap" is British rhyming slang denoting a foolish stooge or scapegoat. Joe being an ordinary person, with Soap as a rhyme for dope. The phrase appeared in a 1943 book of military slang by John Hunt and Alan Pringle: ''“Joe Soap, the ‘dumb’ or not so intelligent members of the forces. The men who are ‘over-willing’ and therefore the usual ‘stooges’.”'' The name Joe Soap appears in the WW1 song "Joe Soap's Army" sung to the tune of "Onward Christian Soldiers". ("Forward, Joe soap's army, marching without fear, with our brave commander, safely in the rear.")

In Popular Culture
Song "Blind Youth" by "The Human League" 1979 lyrics refrain: Blind youth, take hope You're no Joe Soap Your time is due Big fun come soon!

Joe Soap was a photographic comic series published in the British comic book Eagle, from issue 12 (dated June 12, 1982) until issue 45 (dated January 29, 1983). It was written by Alan Grant and John Wagner, with photography by Gary Compton. Another character of the same name appeared in Cracker and The Beezer. The humorous strip featured Joseph Soaper, a self-styled hardboiled "enquiry agent", who was in reality a down-trodden and occasionally incompetent private detective. Nicknamed Soap due to his softness, Soaper spent his days mired in unprofitable or even ludicrous cases, which weren't helped by his tendency to miss obvious clues and antagonise both clients and police. The character of Joe Soap would reappear during the late 1980s, this time in drawn form, in a comic strip/puzzle feature which would be published in both the Eagle Summer Special and the Eagle Annual of that year. Titled Could You Be a Joe Soap?, readers were encouraged to read the story carefully and try to spot in both the frames and speech balloons all the clues Joe missed. In the final panel, after realising that he has got everything completely wrong, Joe would almost always end up exclaiming "Oh no! Where did I go wrong this time?", or words to that effect.

In 1994 Andrew Motion published a long poem with the title Joe Soap.