Airline_Brat

Hi, I did a search, but didn't find the answer to my question. I know bar soap is allowed in carry on, but does anybody know if it looks like explosives on the xray?

Last week I flew out of ORD with a pound of fudge in my carry on and found out that it resembles explosives on the x-ray. Triggered a bag check and delayed me for a few minutes. No big deal except TSA guy took my bag out of my line of sight to run it back through the x-ray sans fudge. I now have some bar soap that I'd like to carry on my flight tonight, but I'll leave it behind if it's going to cause the same hassle. (I'm not checking a bag.)
Thank you!
Virginia

exerda

The small hotel-sized bars of soap, even several stacked together, have not triggered a bag check for my carry-on bag.

As I always end up returning home with more soap than I left with, I can say that bar soap does NOT cause any problems with the TSA.

LessO2

You're basically running into one of the numerous shortfalls the TSA x-ray equipment has.

Bars of soap are large, opaque items (as well as fudge). I regularly bring my own soap with me, and what I have learned through trials and tribulations is to isolate the bar of soap away from your other toiletries and especially away from wires in your bag (cell phone chargers, for example).

My suggestion to you is to put the bar of soap in an exterior compartment/pocket of a rollaboard (or your other carry-on luggage). Again, isolation with those opaque items is key.

nachosdelux

Whatever you do, don't drop the soap.

djk7

I carry a full size bar of soap, and have never had it trigger a bag inspection.

Jebby_ca

A bar of soap triggered a bag check once in SEA for me. The screener said it was something organic, if I remember correctly. Happened a year ago.

Airline_Brat

Thanks for the quick replies. I'm still not sure if I'm going to bring the soap. It's 3 bars still in their packaging, so I suppose I could take it out of my bag & put it in the bin next to my shoes & kippie bag. That way if it looks suspicious on the x-ray they wouldn't need to re-run my bag. On the other hand I may just leave the soap here. I'm visiting my parents so it's not like I'd be throwing it away and it's not some rare expensive soap either.

The fudge was an interesting experience. The image on the x-ray required 4 different screeners to look at it and they all became a bit tense. One asked who's bag it was, I identified myself & told the guy it was probably the fudge. I told him where in the bag to find the fudge and he took it out and visually inspected it. It was in it's original package and clearly marked fudge. He didn't test it in any way other than visually. Didn't open outer box. He put it separately in a bin and told me my bag would have to go through the x-ray again. He then took my bag out of my sight to put it back through the x-ray. I wasn't happy with that because I had put my purse inside my carry on to consolidate things. He waited for a couple of other bags to go through before putting mine in so it was out of my sight for about 5 minutes. Bag and fudge came through x-ray and the guy said I was clear to go. Nothing was taken from my bag, but still makes me nervous to have my things out of my view. I don't ever travel with excessive valuables, but I did have a bit of cash and of course credit cards in my purse.

I arrived here in FLL and gave Dad the fudge and told him I hope it's good because it's the last time I'm bringing him any!

whirledtraveler

It should be fine until someone in the chain of command watches Fight Club.

AirlineBrat53

Fudge and peanut butter show up as suspect items because of the density. I never saw soap triggering anything but then it's been a while since I was at an x-ray machine.

Happy travels.

N965VJ

I’m glad to hear I’m not the only one who hates those little bars of hotel soap! I always carry a full-size bar with me; it’s never triggered a search (yet). The key is to keep things with mass apart from each other so a screener does not see a big blob of something unidentifiable on the x-ray.

exerda

I actually don't mind the hotel soaps; I don't use them myself, but my wife loves them, so I bring a bunch back for her every time I'm on a trip. I know soap's not costly, but it saves buying them, too.

I carry liquid body wash soap in my kippie bag for myself.

jello2594

You see, what you do when leaving Amsterdam is you get a regular size bar of soap, then you get a sharp knife and cut in half. Then you hollow out the inside of the soap and pack as much um, stuff, into is as possible. You then wet the cut edges of the soap and press it back together. You then run your wet finger around the outside of the bar of soap. Now the dogs can't detect your um... non-soap items.

N965VJ

Wirelessly posted (Motorola DynaTAC 8000X / NCSA Mosaic v 1.0)
Yeah, I don’t like coming out of the shower smelling like a girly-man, and what’s the deal with that soap that has little flakes of oatmeal in it? I hoard those little shampoo bottles, though.


I’ll have to award you Artful Concealer Gold status for that one.

Boggie Dog

Might work but I'm not willing to risk my freedom giving it a try.

Perhaps a little note to TSA inside just in case they figured it out.

And you do know that Blogdad Bob is going to be in a nervous fright trying to get the word out on "Soap, the next big catch!"

LoganTSO

No. Opaque would be the change in this here example photo from an Israeli company. The soap would be classified as an orangic mass. Like that giant blob of explosive material sitting right next to the change.

And generally, I don't usually have a problem with soap... only once in a while is it hard to tell.