Dr. Squatch Pine Tar soap review: my ten-shower test

Review Highlights:

• Scent – The scent is the biggest selling point. It simply smells great while not overpowering the nose of you or those around you.
• Exfoliation – Deep exfoliation texture here. Expect this soap to knock all dead skin cells off your body for smooth results.
• Lather – For a natural soap, the lather is pretty good. Great visual feedback here.
• Value – Wish this soap lasted a bit longer between restocking. Expect it to last you about 10 showers before you need to replenish.

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There is no denying the uptick in popularity of natural men’s grooming products in recent years.  From beard oil to bar soap, no corner of the men’s grooming market was left untouched.

It’s through this natural revolution that brands like Dr. Squatch have found their ways into the modern man’s grooming routine.

But does natural always mean it’s better?

In this guide, we’re going to put Dr. Squatch to the test.  From an in-depth look at the company to our hands-on review of the soap itself – by the end of this guide you will have a complete (and unfiltered) look at Dr. Squatch.

Let’s dive in:

Why You Should Trust Our Review

Here are a few key points you should know about our review before we get started:

• This is not a paid post.  We don’t accept paid or sponsored posts on this site.
• We paid for the product featured in this post out of our pocket.
• We are independently owned and operated.
• This post may contain affiliate links that help us to cover operational costs.
• The team at Dr. Squatch is not aware of or reviewing this post before publication. 

Unboxing Dr. Squatch

For this review, we decided to purchase Dr. Squatch directly off their website.  Therefore should you decide to order this through a different online retailer (i.e. Amazon), the packaging may be a bit different.

Given that this is a $7 bar of soap and not a high-end product, the packaging is extremely plain – just a padded envelope:

Within the envelope, you will have a bar of soap and the packing slip:

Again, super simple and likely not the reason you are ordering this soap to begin with.

As for the soap itself, here’s a closer look at the front label:

As you can see, the bar of soap is 5oz (142g) in size.

If you like to “vote with your wallet” and buy products that lessen their impact on the environment, then you will like that the packaging has been made from recycled materials:

When flipping around the back of the bar, you find some of the key features of the soap itself:

As for the biggest selling point, the ingredients, Dr. Squatch relies on an all-natural blend of ingredients that you can pronounce which include the following:

• Saponified Oils (Olive, Sustainable Palm, and Coconut)
• Shea Butter
• Lye
• Pine Tar
• Oatmeal
• Sand
• Sea Salt
• Activated Charcoal
• Kaolin Clay

Here’s a closer look of the ingredient label as well:

Once you pop open the side panel of the box, you have a nice square block of natural soap:

As for the grip, the soap feels and fits pretty firmly in your hand and not too unwieldy:

As for the actual dimensions, the soap is about 2.5″ wide x 2.5″ long x 1″ high (measurements are approximate). 

Using Dr. Squatch

When you give Dr. Squatch a try, you will quickly realize that this will be very different from your standard bar of soap (i.e. Old Spice, Dove Men, etc.) that you may be using currently.

Therefore, when you use Dr. Squatch it will be a unique experience – to help you learn on what you can expect, I will break this down into a few different subsections:

Soap Texture

First and foremost, this soap will not feel anything like a standard bar of soap.

As you may have caught in the product pics above, this is an exfoliating bar and contains a rather aggressive grit (sand) throughout the bar.

Whether you are rubbing this product on your stomach, arms, or legs, the soap’s grippy texture will give you that tactile feedback that you’re removing both dirt and grime from the surface of your skin.

Now given that this grit is aggressive, some men may be rightfully turned off from using this on delicate areas of skin – notably the groin area. 

However, after using this soap a few times, you will get used to the grit within the bar.

Lather

When showering, many men love to see a nice sudsy lather when washing.  It provides the visual cue that the soap is working as it should.

The lather provided by Dr. Squatch is adequate.

While not nearly as bubbly as your standard bar of soap or body wash, here is what I experienced when simply washing my hands:

As you can see, the soap laters pretty well, especially when you remember that it is derived from all-natural ingredients.

Skin Texture

One thing that I noticed when using this soap was the texture of my skin when rinsing off.

Given that this is made largely from a mixture of oils and an exfoliating agent, I expected my skin to be silky smooth to the touch.

Instead, upon rinsing, the texture of my skin was quite the opposite – rather grippy.

Regardless, after some thorough rinsing and drying off, the grippy texture wasn’t noticeable after my shower at all and in fact, my skin felt pretty smooth when I dried off.

Rinse & Color

Given that this particular soap is darker in color, when rinsing off you may notice that the water will be a few shades darker as a result of the soap.  

While this isn’t necessarily a good or bad thing – it is different when compared to the traditional white lather you will see when rinsing with a standard bar of soap. 

Therefore, we just wanted to note this for those men trying a natural soap for the very first time.

Scent Strength

When it comes to scent, from the onset Dr. Squatch soap smells quite potent (and rather good).

However, scent is highly subjective and certain smells may work better for one man’s style over another.  Therefore, I want to refrain from strongly recommending a scent that you should try out. However, I thought this bar smelled particularly good.

That being said, I want to just quickly touch on the potency.

You should expect the scent of the soap to quickly dissipate within a few hours of use.  

When buying a bar of soap from Dr. Squatch, I would recommend that if you wear body spray or cologne daily, then you should find a bar that matches these fragrances.

This way your overall scent profile will be harmonious rather than offering up contrasting scents.

Value

Given that the bar I tested cost $7 at the time – the high price tag is a reasonable concern for many men especially if you plan on using this soap for daily use.

While we recently wrote a detailed post on how to get your grooming budget under control, we wanted to run an extensive field test of sorts of Dr. Squatch soap.

What we wanted to learn was how long a bar of Dr. Squatch soap lasts?

The reason for this is that during our research for this guide, we came across several online posts where men stated that a single bar would last only a week at best.

To test this bold claim, I went ahead and used a bar of Dr. Squatch for a couple of weeks to see how it would get used up over time.

As to prevent the soap from dissolving prematurely, I went ahead and removed it after every shower as a control (i.e. so it was only used for body washing and not getting splashed on from other household members showering and making it dissolve quicker).

Editor’s Note: I did use it once on my hands to create the lathering gif that was shown earlier in this article.

Here’s a look at how the soap held up over time:

As you can see from the pictures above, my bar of Dr. Squatch soap lasted about 10 showers.

What does this mean for you?

If you shower daily, then the cost of Dr. Squatch can really start to add up.

However, if you like to skip a day or two between showers, then the price likely won’t be a big deal as you can make a single bar last for several weeks before it needs to be restocked.

At the end of the day, this will be a question that only you can answer based on your showering habits.

Final Thoughts on Dr. Squatch

Overall, I thought that Dr. Squatch provided a decent bar of soap.  If you currently use a standard or mass-produced bar of soap and are looking for a natural alternative, then Dr. Squatch will provide a unique and new experience.

If there was any drawback that men will have about this soap, it will be around value. Lasting about 10 showers at most, some men may find that it is quite expensive when compared to other offerings currently available – especially those who shower daily.