Why there’s nothing quite as fabulous as fancy soap
AS A child, i wasn’t a great collector of things — no stamps, stickers or stick insects. However, i did boast a treasure trove of soaps.
What happened to this cornucopia? They were too prized ever to be used: 30 or so increasingly chipped trophies smelling of calm and clean skin.
Later, when i first ventured abroad, aged 20, my mother packed a slab of guerlain soap into my rucksack, because a girl had to have some glamour to sustain her. it nestled there all summer, scenting our most squalid quarters, and was something i could press my nose to when i felt lost and was longing for home.
guerlain no longer produces soap. However, i have high hopes of it returning, as sales of traditional slabs are on the up, buyers drawn by the lack of waste attendant on liquid variants.
Soap is created by mixing fats and oils with a base, the resulting blocks being one of humanity’s most ancient civilising forces, dating back to around 2800 BC. Like good bread, good soap is one of those staples that can buoy us, not least at times of horror: a small pleasure with big results.
During the second half of the 17th century a soap tax was introduced in Britain, meaning that, until the mid-19th century, soap was an everyday luxury wielded only by the wealthy. And it still carries that aura, even if it’s only a bar of Pears from Boots (currently 90p for two 100g blocks).
in 2009, unilever altered the formula of this glycerine classic — the basis for the world’s oldest continuously existing brand — replacing its vaguely medicinal thyme aroma with something more robust.
An outcry ensued — and rightly. Mess with the scent of our soap and you mess with the scent of our lives.
The way Betts women traditionally got through January and February was with a bar of Chanel soap — glorious, fat 150g bricks (£23, chanel.com) — received in their Christmas stocking. As the year wore on it might be a Bronnley lemon (£13 for 3x100g, amazon.co.uk), always thrilling.
Local chemist-wise, i’m not keen on the smell of the fiendishly popular Dove Beauty Cream Bar (£1.10 for 2 x 100g, boots.com)— too abrasively synthetic — yet enjoy the odd flirtation with Wright’s bluntly antiseptic Traditional Coal Tar (85p for 125g, boots.com). However, my real fixation is Ayumi’s divine Sandalwood & Jojoba Soap (£2.49 for 100g, ayumi.co.uk), which i buy in bulk and store in my knicker drawer.
At the other end of the investment scale, Santa Maria novella’s plant and whole-milk bars trace their roots back to the Florence of 1221, when friars founded a monastery and then the garden that became the basis for their pharmacy.
To enter the brand’s Piccadilly boutique is to swoon over a wall of sublimely-scented bricks. Your passion may be almond, musk, Tuscan tobacco or russian Cologne. For me, it has to be Sapone Fior d’iris (£12, for 100g, uk.smnovella.com), given that the finest iris is Florentine.
At Fortnum & Mason, you can succumb to the packaging of the Art Deco Claus Porto Deco Soap gift Box (£60 for 9 x 50g, fortnum andmason.com), and Ortigia’s leopard-adorned Sicilia Zagara glass Plate & Soap Set (£25) — both magnificent gifts. Or for single bars, in-store only, nesti Dante’s Luxury Platinum Soap (£7 for 250g) has the cleanest of clean soap fragrances, and Dei Colli Fiorentini’s Cipresso (£6 for 250g) the most intoxicatingly verdant.
British stalwart Penhaligon’s just released three, sumptuously lather-producing numbers (£24 for 150g, penhaligons.com): Halfeti, a hypnotic oud, amber and spiced rose; Luna, an orange, jasmine, fir and rose bouquet; and Quercus, a zesty English oak.
When broke, i hit branches of TK Maxx, where colossal blocks of the Florentine stuff can be had for £2.99 (in-store only).
However, my latest budget fix will be Foufour’s Savon De Marseille, available in 33 aromas for £2.50 per 125g on Amazon.
Marseilles has a long and distinguished tradition of soap-making, its wares (also known as Castile soap) created from pure olive oil, thus pleasingly mild.
reviewers declare this variant both creamy and exquisitely perfumed. i have ordered vetiver, patchouli and ylang ylang for an instant sudsy uplift.