Dirty young man

[Rosendula]

I'm talking about my son. He's mucky. His job as an apprentice electrician has him crawling through lofts and all sorts of narrow gaps and he comes home absolutely grafted from head to foot. Unfortunately, normal soap and shower gel isn't getting it off, so he's wondering if anyone knows of a not-too-expensive natural swarfega-type product that he can use in the shower on his face, arms and legs.

[Clara]

salt and olive oil scrub, or sugar if he's got cuts (salt stings!), or gentle use of a pumice stone works great.

[Annpan]

If you go for the salt and oil watch out for slipping in the shower... don't half make you slippy. (I made some lovely stuff for BIL - with powdered cinnamon and ginger)

How about bicarb? you could always scent it with tea-tree and mint (or something equally manly)

[Milims]

I bought a bar of lovely scrubby soap from lush recently. It's made with sand and has a lovely citrus smell. I know about electrician muck - I've done it too - and this stuff seems to shift it!

[Rosendula]

Thanks for the replies so far. I will probably try all the ideas small-scale to see which ones he likes.

I bought a bar of lovely scrubby soap from lush recently. It's made with sand and has a lovely citrus smell. I know about electrician muck - I've done it too - and this stuff seems to shift it!

We had thought about sand, but having recently had to remove the U-bend from the wash basin and getting rather stinky in the process I would like to avoid having to do that for the bath. Doesn't sand sink and pile up in the U-bend?

[Ellendra]

Try a scrubbing brush, with his normal soap. It can be as aggressive as you like (depending on how stiff the bristles are and how vigorously he scrubs), but it won't effect your pipes at all.

The kind used to scrub floors seems to work well for me.

[the.fee.fairy]

i knoe Ecover used to do a lovely hand scrub for dirty hands, but i'm not sure if they do it anymore.