new sluggy soap dishes

photo of a sluggy soap dish with soap on it

TL;DR: new sluggy soap dishes in the shop

Ten or twelve years ago (or maybe more) our apartment in San Francisco needed a soap dish. I wanted to make something decorative, and thought about what would look good covered in soap slime.

Banana slugs, of course.

Thus my first Sluggy Soap Dishes were born. I made a few extra and these surprisingly became a regular sales item. The earlier ones were made from a rolled slab, hand-cut into an oval with impressed designs, like these:

two old navy-blue suggy soap dishes, oval

A lot of folks like these (and I still have a few for sale), but I wanted something that drained better than the impressed designs. This meant, of course, creating a custom extruder plate so that I could extrude deeply grooved soap plates with feet:

custom extruder plate design for soap dishes

The result is really nice. Still all the charm of my original sluggy soap dishes, but better at holding the runoff from your soap.

new sluggy soap dish, blue

The slugs are hand-sculpted, of course. After more than a decade of putting slugs on everything, I've become quite good at making them. I tried making molds for the slugs, but it's really faster for me to freehand them. And that way the slugs have more individual personality, too.

These would be a fun gift for anyone you know who likes slugs. They're useful for the bathroom, kitchen, or best of all the gardening sink. Order one now to have it in time for Hanukkah!