glycerine soap for winter; normal hard soap for summer

there used to be a clear segregation of the type of soap to be used in winter and summer... look at the hoardings all over, the radio or occasional (then) TV advertisements and all one could fathom was: glycerine soaps are meant for winter and there were a plethora of local names (they were too puny to be called brands) to choose from...
with glycerine soaps piggy backed the skin care lotions: names like Tuhina, Basanta Malati that appealed to the earlier generations and Nivea, Dove to the later ones...

this was the scenario when we were growing up... soaps and skin care products were touted only on the anvil of winter... rest of the year, one could live without any regimen of skin care...
and believe me, we lived this... we became conscious of skin care only when the weather became drier, each year, year after year...
the rest of the sultry, sweaty summer passed without much ado about skin care...

today, when R spends aeons in front of the mirror, applying lotion, all year round, i find it perfectly normal...
but when i look deeper into this, i feel, she is growing in different times, away from family elders... many of my growing up experiences were different from R because we always had invisible power centres outside of the immediate family, constantly interferening in the way we were growing up, giving 'new' (since they did not strike Mom alone) ideas on how growing children need to be controlled. we, as parents, do not give such liberty to anyone to comment on our child's limits and on our parenting lacunae...

this has its merits and shortcomings... she is growing free from interference, but equally she has very few people who know her as a person, even within the wider family... in my natal set up, she is my daughter; in B's family, she is his...