Steel yourself away from smells (Deos Steel Soap)

Member Name: cmh4135

Product:	Deos Steel Soap
Date:	03/03/08 (92 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: Seems to work

Disadvantages: No scientific back up

One of the biggest downsides of cooking for me is the smell of odorous ingredients that get left on your hands. For me there's nothing more unpleasant than sitting down to a lovely piece of fish, for example, and then smelling the raw product on your hands, or dare I say, laying in bed and smelling onions or garlic on your fingers. Some products, no matter how well you wash your hands, just seem to linger. Well, not in my house!

Would you think that you can wash your hands with a lump of metal using cold water only and get rid of such nasty smells? Well, you can!

Steel soaps utilise the oxio-reductive qualities of steel to rid hands of nasty niffs. What that means in English is most people's guess but what it means to you and me is that it works.

The Deos Steel Soap made by Mastrad was one of the first steel soaps on the market. I'm sure "Deos" was intended as a contraction of deodorant (or derivative thereof) but to me it's a God-send.

Shaped rather like a pear-drop this has to be one of the most effective ways to get rid of nasty niffs. You simply rub the soap over your hands under cold water and the smells are gone. Sounds too good to be true.

I started to say that the steel soap was ecologically friendly but, on reflection it's not. You see it only really works if you use it under cold running water and so, at least in terms of water usage, it's not that green. It doesn't add detergent back into the eco-system, nor will it run out, so it's a balancing act.

The "soap" is ergonomically designed making it easy to wash your hands with - just pretend it's regular soap. There's also a handy nail tool positioned at the pointed end of the soap. This is great for getting bits from under your nails whilst deodorising too.

Other steel soaps are available on the market of various shapes and sizes but this is the only one that I have come across with a nail tool.

The steel soap comes with a plastic holder that you can stick to your wall (with sticky pads) and is designed to keep the steel to hand. Personally I don't use it as I don't want sticky pads on my kitchen tiles and I find it quite fiddly to get the soap in and out of the holder. As this has to be the ultimate clean soap it doesn't matter that it doesn't go back in its holder. Personally I keep mine in a utensils drawer and get it out when I think I might need it after a recipe.

I like the steel soap as it's non-drying and detergent free. It means that I can use a scented handwash in the kitchen that will have moisturising properties and know that I can still shift those nasty niffs. In fact, I'll sometimes put liquid soap on my hands and then use the steel as a bar soap to achieve the two jobs in one.

I won't kid you though - if you've had a mammoth garlic chopping session then it may require a little more effort to really get rid of the smell, however, the smell left after a standard meal preparation is dealt with with ease.

What bothers me when making a claim like this is that there's no real scientific proof behind my claims. There's no real research that says these things work or they don't. There are theories as to how they might work but they all seem rather implausible.

I had similar feelings to these about "Eco Balls" a green ionising washing solution and, having invested, found that they really were a "load of balls" but this steel soap really does do the trick. Whether any other substance would do the same I can't say though.

Steels are available from cooks shops and Amazon amongst others. I think it's worth the £5-6, but it is unproven, at least scientifically.

Summary: Can you wash with metal?