Hotels and some hosts often offer their guests little individually wrapped bars of soap. But the soaps are usually not all used up by the time the guest leaves, the remainder being thrown away. Now, soap may be dirt cheap (1-2¢ per bar for the ingredients, most of the shop cost coming from marketing, packaging and shipping), but this is still wasteful.
So it seems to me that offering guests individual soap leaves, each good for one good lather, would avoid this wastefulness. The soap leaves would either get used or left for the next gust.
Sadly (or happily, I guess), it only takes a little web searching to show that soap leaves are thoroughly Baked. (See first link.)
But it still struck me that someone reaching for one of these with wet hands would probably spoil the whole pack, so I present the pop-up soap leaf dispenser.
Using Post-It® note technology, the soap leaves are cunningly fashioned so that pulling one from the dispenser pops up another one after it. (See second link.)
So now in a shared environment - hotel, dorm, guest room or household bathroom - you can use your own fresh piece of soap for each wash, and still be as ecologically sound as washing soap suds down the drain allows you to be.-- DrCurry, Oct 07 2006 Soap Leaves http://www.cndcount...fts.com/soap10.html [DrCurry, Oct 07 2006] Post-It® Dispensers http://www.gimmees....oducts/DA310dis.jpg [DrCurry, Oct 07 2006] Real Soap Leaves http://www.brisrain...tails_pop.asp?ID=21 [ConsulFlaminicus, Oct 08 2006] <slips on leaf> oops!-- po, Oct 07 2006 soaps, rinses & leaves...-- po, Oct 07 2006 Like those foul gum-replacement dissolving breath-freshener mint leaf things....but soap! +-- squeak, Oct 09 2006 as long as they are actually leaf shaped as well +-- xenzag, Oct 09 2006 [zenzag] Banana Leaf? Or Thyme?-- Galbinus_Caeli, Oct 10 2006 leaf it out!-- po, Oct 10 2006 I'm dissappointed, I thought this would involve real leaves somehow, or at least be a soap dispenser that looked like a leaf.-- ModernDivo, Aug 18 2008 random, halfbakery