Sailor's Soap

Sailors would often use this beige spongy ball as a natural soap or sponge before it was easy to buy soap and so it was also called a sea washball.

This ball looking like bubble wrap is actually the egg case of the common whelk which is a large sea snail usually about 3 or 4 inches long. Each of the capsules would contain many eggs but only about ten hatch as the survivors eat the rest of the eggs. There are many varieties of shells here but there is only a broken whelk shell just visible at the top although there were several complete shells close by on this shell beach. Frequently these light weight egg cases are found on the seashore after strong winds.

Thankfully we can easily buy soap or similar.

Edit On seeing it in large I notice there is a whelk shell to the left.