Light Packers Are Obsessed With This $14 Bar Soap Bag. I Found Out Why.

New York Times

12-03-2025

To determine if the Matador soap bag really dried soap faster than other methods, I conducted three tests comparing it with several alternatives (a disposable sandwich bag, a silicone bag, and a plastic case). In each test, I submerged Dove bars1 in water for 15 minutes and then let them dry to varying degrees before I put them in their containers. I conducted several tests to see which container dried soap the fastest. Maria Adelmann/NYT Wirecutter
In two of the three tests, after hours of drying time, the bar soap from the Matador bag was deemed driest, but only marginally so. In the third test, the bars were not appreciably different from each other. (For the two tests where it wasn't immediately obvious which soap was driest, I had a volunteer blindly rank them.) In one test, I put the bars in their containers soaking wet. After 18 hours, none of the bars, including the one in the Matador bag, had fully dried. In two of the three tests, the soap from the Matador bag was driest, but only marginally so. Maria Adelmann/NYT Wirecutter
But I was worried that soaking the bar soap didn't accurately mimic the less dramatic way soap tends to get wet in a shower. So for a week, I showered with two bars of soap, one of which went into the plastic sandwich bag and one of which went into the Matador soap bag.
This is where the Matador bag really stood out. The bag and the soap inside it always dried before my next shower, while the interior of the sandwich bag and the soap inside never completely dried, even after one 48-hour stint. The Matador bag stood out in real-world testing. Soap in the Matador bag always dried before my next shower, and soap from the (very gunky) sandwich bag never dried. Maria Adelmann/NYT Wirecutter
I also hated the feeling of pulling the soap out of the slimy, gunky sandwich bag, which I fought the urge to replace over the course of a week. Meanwhile, the Matador soap bag, with its easy-to-rinse opaque exterior, always looked clean. Any gunk inside was hidden from view and totally dry when I needed my soap.
Interestingly, Matador's instructions say that the soap will dry faster when the bag is exposed to air, but I didn't find much of a difference in drying time between putting the Matador bag on the counter versus in a toiletry bag.
My real-world experience lines up with that of deputy editorial director Maxine Builder, who has owned the Matador soap bar bag for almost a year and uses it to hold her shaving bar, even when she showers at home.
Most of the time, she doesn't even think about the bag. 'I seal the bar of soap up after using it, even when it's sopping wet, and when I open it up later, it's dry and ready to go, neither slimy nor soft and mushy,' Maxine says. It's kind of pricey for a simple bag, she admits, but she thinks it looks and feels nicer than a plastic case.