Soap cutting is the latest craze to hit YouTube and Instagram, capturing a global audience of ASMR enthusiasts.
In these videos, perfectly manicured hands pain-stakingly carve bars of soap, stimulating the autonomous sensory meridian response (ASMR) – and some people can’t get enough of it.
According to The Guardian, soap-cutting fans describe the process as “weirdly mesmerizing.”
“I feel like I can forget things for a while and just focus on the feel and sounds of cutting the soap,” says 27-year-old Kaelin (soapydopey416).
Nazish, 25, from Leeds (asmr.crackle) told The Guardian that she started her account last year “as a personal form of art therapy to relieve my own anxiety and insomnia”. It is, she says, “an alternative type of white noise”.
If the idea of soap cutting doesn’t float your boat, you could always watch videos of people playing with slime; cutting kinetic sand, or mixing paint with a palette knife.