Viewing the process as a whole, ignoring the extraneous dye and stamps; it’s a pretty simple to make usable:
- Mix fat with sodium hydroxide.
- Solidify soap into shape suitable for compaction (in this case, ribbons).
- Repeatedly compact shaped soap into desired shape.
How efficient and usable would the soap be if it was just sold as cut ribbions, instead of bars?
Fun fact: iirc you can make lye (aka sodium hydroxide) from hardwood ash and water (with some simple processing).
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The same goes for herbs and spices to some degree. I buy one herb plant from the store and then just place it in a pot and give it water. I’m not the world’s best gardener in any way but even I can keep my herb plants alive for months, and they produce more herbs than I can eat basically.
With some proper research you should be able to maybe buy a new plant every year or so instead of the small, overpriced containers at the store. I grow, basil, mint, parsley, just to name a few. A pre-planted and pre-grown plant at my local supermarket costs 2-3 euro’s, maybe.
I’ve heard mint will take over garden plots if not physically constrained, so watch out for that.
Totally agree on herbs, though. Having fresh herbs in hand makes cooking way tastier and fun, plus fresh herbs from the store are a big rip off (in the u.s. at least) and come with plastic waste. I live in a Mediterranean climate and so my thyme grows as a perennial and we have rosemary growing everywhere ornamentally ♥️
The trick is, the capitalists want us working so much we don’t have the time or energy to do any of this. This requiring us to buy it all. Which costs more money. Which causes us to need to work more…