When it comes right down to it, the type of soap you use has nothing to do with whether you’re a real man or not. Unless of course, you’ve been using Oil of Olay or any type of bath bar. In which case, you should seriously reconsider.

With that said, I’ve noticed a lot of television commercials for men’s soap recently (with the Old Spice ones clearly dominating the field) and so I thought I’d throw in my own two-cents on the subject. After all, if a real man is supposed to be comfortable in his own skin, shouldn’t we try to make our own skin comfortable?

Lava soap is, as M.C. Hammer might say, “Too legit to quit.” I mean, just look at the packaging. It’s simple and practical. It’s red, black, white (all very masculine colors) and it has a picture of a mountain in the background. And it’s not some mamby pamby pristine mountain top either. It’s a volcano. A volcano that could, at any given moment, violently explode without warning spewing tons of ash and fire into the atmosphere grounding all of the flights in Europe for over a week. And that’s just the packaging.

When I tear into a bar of Lava soap, I never cease to be amazed at the beauty and simplicity of these little green bars of manliness. I mean, sure, it’s just a bar of soap. But this is no ordinary soap. As the packaging says, it’s source link PUMICE POWERED! I like to refer to it as scruffy soap.

It’s the kind of soap that you instantly know can manhandle any amount of dirt or grease on your person at any time. Axel grease, no problem. Manure, easy. Motor oil, piece of cake.

It’s the kind of soap that a woman would only use on the heals of her feet. Don’t even try using it on a child unless you want to be ridden with guilt over the pain and anguish you’ll inevitably inflict on their tender young skin.

This is man soap. Lever 2000 may be good for all your 2000 body parts, but there’s a reason they call it LEVER and that’s because it LEAVES dirt and grime behind. Not Lava. Lava will literally scrape everything off that Lever leaves behind, including the top layer of your skin if you’ve been pampering it with Olay or some other ladies bath bar.

If you’re already using Irish Springs, Ivory, Zest, or some other gender-neutral soap product, please don’t hear me saying you have to go out and switch to Lava in order to be a real man. However, if you find yourself in the market for a new type of soap at any point in the near future, let me encourage you to give Lava a try. You won’t regret it (Unless of course you’re a baby, in which case you will regret it because it will make you cry. Then again, if you’re a baby, you’re probably not buying soap for yourself yet).

If you’re not convinced yet, perhaps the ultimate stamp of approval for Lava soap is this: it’s the only soap I know of that is regularly sold in hardware stores.

Lava soap… it’s pumice powered, so you know it’s good.