People go back to liquid soap for one reason: the bar turns to mush in about a week and leaves a grey film in the dish.
That is not the soap. That is the dish.
Why a soap dish is the problem
A dish with a flat base collects the water that runs off the bar. The bar then sits in it. Soap dissolves in standing water far faster than it wears down in use, which is why a bar in a dish disappears in a fortnight and the same bar on a dry surface lasts two months.
Ridges in the dish help slightly and do not solve it, because the water still has nowhere to go.
The fix is air on every side
A magnetic holder is the version that works properly. A small disc presses into the bar, the bar hangs from a magnet on the wall, and it dries from every surface between showers. Nothing touches it.
The practical result is that a bar lasts roughly twice as long, and the shelf under it stays clean.
The one honest drawback: you have to press the disc into a fresh bar, and the last centimetre of soap will fall off. Some people keep a small tin for the ends.
If you would rather not
Then the bar needs to live somewhere that drains and is out of the spray. A shelf with an open base, mounted away from the shower head, works — the point is not the shelf, it is that water falls through it and the bar is not being rinsed every time you shower.
The rule underneath all of this
Nothing in a bathroom should have a solid base. Not the soap, not the sponge, not the razor, not the toothbrush cup.
A closed base collects a shallow pool within a week, and that pool is why things go slimy on the underside. This single rule matters more than any product in the room.
The rest is in the Bathroom.
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Common questions
Why does bar soap turn to mush?
Because it sits in water it made itself. A bar that cannot drain stays wet between uses and dissolves from the bottom up.
What actually fixes it?
Drainage and air. A dish that lifts the bar off the surface and lets it dry on all sides will roughly double how long it lasts.
Does the soap itself matter?
Some, but less than drainage. A harder milled bar — a firm tea tree bar, for instance — survives a bad dish longer, and a good dish saves a soft bar.
