I realize this is not the most exciting project, but it really has made an improvement in my daily life.

A few months ago, I switched to using bars for all of my soap/shampoo/conditioner needs. Honestly this change has been great for me, my skin and hair feel much better than the bottled soaps I was using before, but the problem with bar soap is there's not a great place to put it in the shower.

My soap dish journey

At the time of switching to bar soap, I had quickly designed a stand for linoleum carving a few weeks prior that wasn't getting much use. I figured I'd use that at my soap holder, to prevent the gummy deterioration of the soap bars left on the side of the tub.

The soap would still get stuck to the printed part instead of the tub so it had all of the same issues, but maybe just a little easier to remove.

I finally decided enough was enough and I would make a real soap dish.

In my first attempt, I wanted to be cheeky and make it infinitely expandable in the impossible case I would end up needing to shelter more than 3 bars of soap. (or rather to just allow other people to download as many as they needed).

That night I tested this design (i.e. I took a shower) and learned that the soap bars were far too slippery to grab out of the slots when they were wet.

I did a quick redesign that still allowed for drainage, while keeping the bars easily accessible. I also ensured the design would still work when the soap bars become smaller near the end of their life.

The design seems to work well. You can toss the soap into the slot in many different orientations, which makes it feel usable enough to forget it's even there.

The end of scrappy summer

This is the seventh summer project which, since the goal was a project every 7 days that took no more than 7 hours, feels like a fitting end to this experiment.

I learned a lot by doing this weekly project challenge (which I will write about in a future blog post) but it does feel like I am unable to take on some of the more ambitious projects that I am interested in at the moment.

There is certainly something to "shipping" every week, but I will try to bring that mindset to shipping pieces of a larger cohesive goal.