About to take a shower the other day I noticed Palmolive’s new “easy grip” soap bar design. One face of the bar is reamed out in such a way that the circumference of the bar is less at the middle of the bar than at either end, making the bar less easy to drop.

But what happened to the reamed out soap? Did Palmolive make each bar of soap slightly larger overall to maintain the same weight as before? Or did each bar of soap maintain its overall dimensions but lose weight?

And what happened to the retail price?