I was annoyed this week to find that Wright’s Coal Tar soap bars have switched down from 125g to 100g (though still 80 pence, at supermarket prices).
On researching this I was further annoyed to find that it’s no longer even Wright’s Coal Tar soap. The EU blocked proper coal tar soap from open sale from around 2012. Wright’s is now merely billed as ‘traditional soap with coal tar fragrance’. And not so much of the old ‘coal tar’ fragrance at that, since the smell is now emulated via a blend of other scents. Quite a toned-down smell, and quite variable from bar to bar. Sometimes hardly even noticeable, I’ve been finding. I put this variability of ‘the coal tar smell’ (which I like and find pleasant) down to the lockdowns and supply problems, and gave the company the benefit of the doubt. But I now discover the horrible truth about this much-loved ‘heritage’ brand.
Wright’s soap is now said to be made in Turkey at the behest of a brand owner in Solihull, near Birmingham. The old original Wright’s firm having sold out at the end of the 1960s. The active antiseptic ingredient is now the cheap and ubiquitous ‘tea oil’, rather than coal tar (aka liquor carbonis).
Even the vintage “Original” Wright’s bars, occasionally for sale on eBay, show by their wrapping that the smell was being reduced before the EU ban…
Note the “milder fragrance” claim. It’s definitely not a smell loved by all, and some (especially women who have to live with it on their men) hate it.
Ok, so are there alternatives in 2023 that have real coal tar and the proper smell? I took a look. ‘Kind of’ is the answer.
First, avoid a Russian seller on eBay. There’s a Russian ‘pine tar’ soap which a canny Russian seller passes off as ‘coal tar’, banking that the clueless buyer won’t know the difference. But pine tar is not coal tar.
The only genuine coal tar soap of any reputation in the UK seems to be Cosalic soap made by Salvia of India (aka Coslic or Cosilc on eBay). 3% coal tar. Possibly this is branded as Bistar in India, since Bistar has the same distinctive bar shape and colour as Coslic. They actively play on the “coal” idea, by making it look like a shaped lump of black coal. Nice idea, and delightfully politically incorrect.
Regrettably though it’s very expensive either way. Even a 6-pack on Amazon UK will cost £3.88 a bar. That’s £3 a bar more than Wright’s! The India Bistar version seems to be even more expensive, probably due to shipping hiding in the ‘free shipping’ price.
I also found some U.S. sellers on eBay, from expensive back-room hand-made soap makers to the slick and incredibly expensive U.S. Dermabon brand (£28 a bar!).
It seems that part of the cost problem is that the equipment needed to get coal tar can only be used for coal tar extraction, not multi-use for other products. And that complying with health regulations for the extraction workers is now quite costly for the manufacturer. Once extracted the crude tar material (‘coal tar BP’) is flammable and thus presumably needs guards and a fire extinguisher system. Trade papers also report post-lockdown shortages (summer 2022) of the items needed to then make the raw coal tar into a retail consumer product.
Thus, while Cosalic soap is freely available in the UK via Amazon… it is only barely a replacement for Wright’s due to cost… and also because Cosalic’s soap appears to disguise the smell with all sorts of other things. Still, it may be worth trying. Like I said, it’s openly sold on Amazon UK.
I also found the trusted and UK-made Polytar Scalp Coal Tar Shampoo 150ml, also freely sold in the UK by Amazon. Under £10 for a 150ml bottle. Has 4% coal tar. It’s better value than the competing 2% Neutrogena T/Gel Therapeutic Shampoo 250ml, also freely sold (Tesco and Morrisons also have T/Gel on open shelves). Note that the UK’s official body NICE offers public advice on coal tar shampoo use… “applied once a week, left on for one hour and then shampooed off”. I’m not qualified to offer medical advice here, but this top-level official tip seems useful. It’s evidently best left on for a time, rather than washed off after three minutes.
Anyway, Polytar is by all accounts great for the coal tar smell, and the NICE advice means the shampoo can be left on for much of one’s bath-time. Thus it seems to me that the way to get the authentic olde 1960s ‘Coal Tar’ experience would be to apply your Polytar shampoo shortly after entering a bath, while also sparingly using a very expensive bar of Cosalic. Perhaps also have Wright’s cheapo ersatz 80p bar on hand too, to make the soap go a bit further.
Update: No Polytar at Morrisons or Tesco, but apparently Superdrug, Lloyds Pharmacy and Boots carry it on their shelves in the UK.
Interestingly in America they don’t care about EU nonsense, at least for dogs. I was amused to discover that their “PPP Tar-ific Skin Relief Dog Shampoo” sells over the counter, and by the gallon(!) and with 2% coal tar.
Also, I see that the EU has banned Zinc Pyrithione as well, from March 2022. If you were wondering why your anti-dandruff shampoo no longer works half as well as it used to, now you know. So far as I can tell the EU’s reasoning on such things is: it’s safe, but there may be ‘suitable alternatives’, thus it must be banned. That’s how the EU’s bizarre logic works. Of course, in time the ‘suitable alternatives’ may turn out to be… unsuitable. As such I’d rather stick with what’s been proven to be safe for over 50 years and billions of real-world human uses.
Update: Discovered Sudocrem. Amazing stuff! After decades of E45 with little result, I tried Sudocrem instead and… eczema clears up in 48 hours! Get it in the baby aisle of the supermarket (it’s in heavy demand for nappy-rash), at around £2.50 per pot. Cheap and easily available and… works. What’s not to like? The zinc in it, I guess, and I’d be willing to bet the government would ban it (see note on the zinc shampoo ban, above), if they thought there would not be a mother’s uprising that would sweep them out of power within a week.
