When I travel I carry a bar of Chimbo soap (same as Lagarta soap) that I bought in a tiny shop in Asturias a few years back for handwashing clothes along the way. I just dug it out for my son to take with him on a semester studying abroad. In trying to explain it I did some searching on google and discovered it's great for just about everything. I have found it to be the very best handwashing soap for clothes -ever. Forget the expensive stuff, Woolite and all that. Chimbo not only cleans, but gets odors out like nothing else, without lots of scrubbing. (I sound like a commercial!) It's called "pure soap."

Anyway, I've discovered online that people swear it's great for faces (moisturizing afterwards), shampooing, washing dogs, and getting bugs out of houseplants. It's called the soap "de siempre" or "de toda la vida" (of always, or of the whole life; in other words, it's always been around, ask your grandmother!)

Are there any other fans of this Spanish soap out there?

I´ve come across pure soap before and it is indeed as good as you say, although I have never heard of Chimbo soap. I´ve also never used it as a handwash soap, purely as a moisturising face wash.

You may be interested that another very very good product for handwashing natural woolly fibres is Johnstons baby shampoo, or similar. It´s especially good on fine wools such as lambswool, merino, angora, hand wash silks and cashmeres.