“I am looking for soaps” or “I am looking for soap” - which one is better?

I think that if I want to ask for something or discuss something an ”s” is needed at the end of a noun, but I don’t know why a singular noun is not sufficient?

Every time I have asked a shop employee, for example, "where do you have soap?", they respond "soaps?".

That is why I've been thinking that perhaps that I have to put an "s" at the end of the noun when I ask them.

Is that correct?

Solution 1:

Soap is both a countable and uncountable noun (i.e. a mass noun like milk). Usually, if you're in a grocery store, you'd ask:

Where can I find soap?

You could use the plural form, to convey that you're looking for a greater variety:

Where can I find your soaps? I'm looking for something lavender-scented, or maybe a honey/butter mix.

(Also see Grantly's answer for a nice example)

Be aware usage can vary across different variants; for example, British English might favor the plural form. In US English, soap (singular) sounds more natural.

Solution 2:

If you are actually looking for more than one type of soap, then "I'm looking for soaps" is more accurate and therefore could be deemed more correct. Perhaps you have moved into a new house, without any cleaning products and you want to stock up and buy all sorts of soaps / detergents / etc...Then soaps is more fitting.

However, you could also use "I'm looking for soap" in the same context, but you could be misunderstood and one could assume that you are simply looking for normal (body / hand) soap. When in fact you are looking for washing powder / detergent / floor cleaning soap / etc.

To summarize, both are grammatically OK, although care should be used when using the pluralized form "soaps" as this does really indicate 'a selection of [different] soaps'.