Gender as defined by liquid soap


Here are three diffrent kinds of liquid soap. Each one has a gender that it is marketed towards. So let's see what ingrediants in these soaps define gender.

The dove soap is gender neutral anyone in my house would use this soap. My dad bought this for my mom and she was annoyed because it was uncented and not girly enough.

The Softsoap is female. It smells really nice. I picked this out in the store for my mom after my dad stupidly bought the Dove soap and her thought it was too rediculious and that there was no way that was what my mom wanted.

Lastly is Axe, the male soap. Despite its' pretty color it is targeting the male type of human by telling them this will attract females to them.

Let's look at the ingediants shall we?

Gender Neutral Soap: Water, Glycine Soja (Soybean) oil or Helianthus Annuus (Sunflower) seed oil, Glycerin, Petrolatum, Ammonium Lauryl Sulfate, Cocamidopropyl Betaine, Ammonium Laureth Sulfate, Lauric Acid, Cocamide MEA, Polybutene, Guar Hydroxypropyltrimoniom Chloride, Isostearic acid, PEG-5 Cocamide, Acrylates/Beheneth-25 Methacrylate Copolymer, PEG-30 Dipolyhydroxystearate, DMDM Hydantoin, Tetrasodium EDTA, Etidronic Acid, Iodopropynyl Butylcarbamate, Fragrance, Titanuim Dioxide (Cl 77891)

Female Soap: Water, Sodium Laureth Sulfate, Cocamidopropyl Betaine, PEG-8, Xanthan Gum, Fragrance, Mineral Oil, Aloe Barbadenesis Flower Extract, Mangifera Indica (Mango) Fruit extract, Punica Granatum (Pomegranate) fruit extract, Acacia Senegal gum, gelatin, mica, titanium dioxide, DMDM hydantoin, tetrasodium EDTA, Benzophenone-4, Citric acid, FD&C Red No. 40, EXt. D&C violet no.2

Male Soap Water, Ammonium Lauryl Sulfate, Ammonium Laureth Sulfate, Acrylates Copolymer, Cocamidopropyl bentaine, cocamide MEA, fragrance, propylene glycol, PEG-5 cocamide,glycerin, PEG/PPG- 18/18 Dimethicone, Benzophenone-4, PEG-45M, Guar Hydroxypropyltrimonium Chloride, Etidronic Acid, Tetrasodium EDTA, Saccharomyces/Magnesium Ferment, Saccharomyces/Zinc Ferment, Methylchloroisothiazolinone, Methylisothiazolinone, Green 3 (cl 42053), Yellow 5 (cl 19140)

Now I'll go through and delete from the list any ingrediants that the male and female soaps share. because if they both have it than it can't be something that defines gender, it must be something that is nessessary for making soap. I will also delete any thing that the gender neutral soap has because it is the control group and doesnt have an gender definition.

Commom Ingrediants between male and female soaps:Water, Fragrance, tetrasodium EDTA, Cocamidopropyl Betaine, Benzophenone-4


And here you have the definition of male versus female:

Female Soap: Sodium Laureth Sulfate, PEG-8, Xanthan Gum, Mineral Oil, Aloe Barbadenesis Flower Extract, Mangifera Indica (Mango) Fruit extract, Punica Granatum (Pomegranate) fruit extract, Acacia Senegal gum, gelatin, mica , Citric acid, FD&C Red No. 40, EXt. D&C violet no.2

Male Soap propylene glycol, PEG/PPG- 18/18 Dimethicone, PEG-45M, Saccharomyces/Magnesium Ferment, Saccharomyces/Zinc Ferment, Methylchloroisothiazolinone, Methylisothiazolinone, Green 3 (cl 42053), Yellow 5 (cl 19140)


Problems with this: The soaps are all produced by diffrent companies so certain ingrediants might just be something the company uses that others dont use. Also the sample size was way too small. PEG stands for Polyethylene glycol. I decided to keep the diffrent PEG uses unless they were exactally the same.



Un-expected finds: Fragrance was listed in the gender neutral soap as an ingrediant even though it was it was unsented. Gelatin was an ingrediant in the softsoap so it isn't vegan.


Reproduce this with the gendered soaps in your home and post a link to it in the comments.