Soap that has been cut into thin little pieces, like snow or like very small dry petals, so that it melts quickly in water. It comes in a box or a bag. People used it for washing clothes by hand, especially soft things you did not want to hurt — wool sweaters, silk, and baby clothes. The word is plural in form and takes a plural verb: 'the soapflakes are in the cupboard'. You would not normally say 'a soapflake' about one piece, the same way you would not talk about one cornflake in a serious sentence. This word feels old. Soapflakes were everywhere in the 1950s and 60s, and then washing powder and then liquid detergent pushed them out. Today you will meet the word in an old novel, in your grandmother's talk, or on a small expensive box in a shop that sells things for washing wool. Younger English speakers know what it means but almost never buy any. That is worth knowing so that you do not use it for ordinary laundry soap — for that, say 'washing powder' (British) or 'laundry detergent' (American).

肥皂片、皂絲（洗細緻衣物用的片狀肥皂）。注意不是一般洗衣粉（洗衣粉＝washing powder / 洗衣精＝laundry detergent），soapflakes 現在多半用來手洗毛料、絲質或嬰兒衣物。