Dollar Tree bath and body items don’t always have the best scents. They’re getting a lot better compared to how they were ten or fifteen years ago, but many products have a lingering something that’s…amiss. Or a fragrance that smells okay, but dissipates much too quickly. There are very few things you can smell inside Dollar Tree that live up to that promise outside of their store walls; it’s like the scents are programmed to disappear once you take them off the premises.

So imagine my surprise when I caught this full-sized bar at a DT in Tennessee, one of a few things I bought while on vacation visiting the ol’ in-laws. I honestly didn’t think much of it at first sight, except for “Wow this looks pretty big for the price”. Considering one was already hanging outside of the packaging, I decided to take a sniff…and my socks were blown completely off, leaving me standing there in nothing but…well, everything except socks.

This had a strong, fantastic smell more befitting a full priced product rather than something being sold from the dollar store. I thought maybe I was going crazy (my nose doesn’t work the best, as anyone close to me knows), so I had my wife inhale in through her nose about six inches away from the product; she verified what I had thought. This smelled really good.

It was almost as if it were too good to be true. There were some red flags that were already creeping up in the back of my mind – the bar’s large size being the main one – but I forced them back out. After all, you don’t always know why products are being sold at the dollar store: maybe they just didn’t sell well and were on closeout. Or they were new and had gone as-of-yet undiscovered…I was excited to be the one to get to break this under-the-radar gem to the world.

Alas, it is not to be: this is one hell of a disappointing soap bar. You know how cheaper brands of candles will overload the top with fragrance – so anyone taking a casual whiff in store will be impressed with its strength – and then barely put any in the rest? So that the scent is barely noticeable by the third or fourth time you light it (if not sooner)? Well, that’s exactly what we’re dealing with here, because once you actually use it, the smell is virtually untraceable.

None of that strong scent carries over. In fact, it’s rather baffling just how much it drops off once you start lathering it up. Even right out of the shower and sitting next to her, she couldn’t smell me, or notice that I had used anything different, until she virtually pressed her nose against my skin. To be fair, the light scent that remains is good, but if it’s only noticeable in close, then I would imagine it doesn’t last long at all.

While we’re on the topic of suds, the lather quotient isn’t nearly as strong as I would like, another issue that faces most Dollar Tree soap brands (and inexpensive soaps in general). There’s a light accumulation of soap bubbles that land on the skin, but nothing that’s going to make your skin feel super hydrated, or anything. It didn’t seem to dry out my skin, though, which is a plus.

Another possible plus to some people that honestly doesn’t mean much to me, is the fact that it’s vegan. On one hand, I do respect and appreciate Dollar Tree for trying to cater to as many people as possible, and staying on top of current trends; with many vegan products being sold for excessive markups, I suppose it’s nice that this can be had for such a small price. That being said, it’s basically the only “vegan” thing I’ve seen in the store (I don’t even think they have vegan food products), so I highly doubt anyone who identifies as “vegan” is going to go out of their way, to a dollar store, just to buy mediocre soap. But hey, I could be wrong!

At any rate, despite the mention of “charcoal”, the bar is light, and the suds go on pretty light, too. I’m not sure what amount of charcoal has to be in something to gain the “benefits” of the stuff, whatever they may be, but I’d imagine it would have to be more than this. In fact, if there was no mention of it anywhere on the packaging, there would be no way to tell any is in there at all.

Despite the previous six paragraphs indicating the contrary, it’s not an entire waste of money: there really is a lot of soap here for the price. And using almost any soap is better than not using any at all; the scent might be weak, but at least it’s better than BO, so I will definitely finish the bar. But it’s not one that you’re going to want to use before a night out on the town, or a romantic evening in, so it’s relegated to those days when I’ll be doing my best to stay far away from everyone.

So I guess it will get more use than I thought, after all.

Overall: 4.5/10. This is a hugely disappointing soap bar that preys on consumers with the oldest scam in the book: by overloading its surface with fragrance, and then putting virtually none in the rest of it. It’s light on lather (which is a “con” in my book, although others might appreciate that), and outside of the packaging, contains virtually no signs that there’s charcoal anywhere in it at all. There are some plusses: the bar is huge, and even light-scented soap is better than none at all. It’s also vegan, and made in the U.S.A., two things that are pretty rare inside Dollar Tree, but also two things that don’t really mean much to me personally. I certainly won’t be grabbing another one once my current supply runs out.