ASMR: Why Am I Addicted To Watching People Cut Soap?

The discover page on Instagram is a wondrous place. It was here where I saw my first soap-cutting video, not realising that I’d be scrolling mindlessly through hundreds of them for the next hour.

What’s soap-cutting, you ask? If you haven’t seen it by now (which might be impossible at this stage), it’s literally people cutting soap. The trend has taken over Instagram, with accounts literally dedicated to cutting up bars of soap. If you’ve seen these videos before and have also taken a liking to them but have always wondered why, you’re definitely not alone.

Soap-cutting is part of the autonomous sensory meridian response (ASMR) group. Looped in with the sound of nails on a keyboard, whispering and hair brushing, soap-cutting is said to give fans of ASMR a mesmerising, tingling sensation that can often be relaxing and a sleeping aid.

Don’t believe in it? Go to this link and try your best to stop staring/scrolling.

Soap-cutting usually comes in two different styles. The most common usually shows the top of the bar of soap that has been sliced up into tiny squares have an anonymous hand slowly drag a knife beneath them. The squares rise up in soft waves and then rain down on the table below with a satisfying clacking sound.

The second form of soap-cutting shows another anonymous hand shaving a smooth bar of soap down in strips until it disappears. My personal favourites are the transparent soap bars ?

Soap-cutting’s messier cousin, soap-crushing, may also tickle your fancy.

These videos are oddly and delightfully soothing and come with all different colours and shapes of soap. We know it’s weird, but there’s something hypnotic about watching those little soap squares fall away.

It’s evident that there’s a community that enjoy the odd trend, because if you type soap-cutting into the search bar on Instagram you’ll be overloaded with tons of Insta channels dedicated to just that.

• ASMR
• soap cutting