Soap, Sapone, Savon, Sapun, Seife...

08/23/08 14:20:44

A product you most certainly buy for your household on everyday basis is small, lovely, fragrant soap. You choose it for its scent, colour, shape, ingredients, price...

We use it every day and spend time with it several times a day. Soap is very important for general human health, since it removes layers of dirt from our skin surface, whether it is dust, filth or skin products. It stops development of bacteria, which means that soap is a very good friend of ours.

Knowledge on using soap is over 5000 years old. Evidence on its existence is found in Sumerians' clay boards, where soap production was described. Soap was probably used for bathing and washing clothes. Bareliefs in Egyptian tombs also show the way clothes were washed at that time: by hitting and wringing it (everything is a lot simpler today, luckily).

Back in old times, soap was sold in larger pieces i.e. per kilograms. Some well-known companies, such as Lush, revive such way of sale in today's time, while introducing new technologies, colours, scents and shapes.

There are several such stores in England and France. As for shapes, soap production and design are a piece of cake today. The market offers all possible colours and various, imaginative shapes.

Fragrant-free, very mild soap with extra glycerin which will give necessary moisture to your skin is recommended for dry skin. Oily skin requires a different treatment. The ideal soap would be made with extra minerals to absorb and clean unnecessary oil and will not harm protective layer of skin.

Soap ingredients include more and more sea algae and salts. If you prefer more foam that soaps create, an ideal addition for larger foam volume is coconut oil. Lanolin is very precious and it is extracted by purification of sheep wool. It is natural fat and can be mixed very successfully with other types of fat in soap. This ingredient is excellent for your skin, since it destroys all microorganism, fungi, maggot and bacteria.

Soap is increasingly made as antibacterial. Besides those, there is also glycerin soap, which is beneficial for your skin. Soap can be liquid of solid, even in shape of flowers. Their petals can be used once, they melt in your hands when put into water and they have a wonderful scent.

Soap is made of water. The best one is made of distilled or purified rain water, with animal or plant fat, with addition of avocado oil, which makes soap softer, lighter and easier to use during shaving (shaving foam for men). Coconut butter can make soap harder, more colourful and more scented, but with a smaller foam volume.

Other additions to soap depend solely on your wishes. Colours added to natural soap are clay, mineral pigments and spices. To create fragrance, two types of oils can be added: perfumed oils and essential oils.

Some parts of the world have special characteristics in soap production. Open markets in Greece can offer natural soap with olive oil or lavender essential oil additions. Natural soap can also be made of goat milk, citrus, mint etc.

Thai market includes a whole empire of soap in flower shapes. Each has a separate box and it is very difficult to decide which one is the prettiest..

Large perfume houses offer besides perfumes, which are in center of attention, fragrant pallets of products such as body milk, shower gels, baths, deodorants and soaps. They treat soaps with a lot of respect and love, since they design a special box, which usually has the shape of perfume bottle it is presented with and they follow the colour and fragrance of the respective collection.

In a sea of soap with different colours and shapes, I would like to point out some of them, created by such houses as: Dior, Yves Saint Laurent, Lancome, Hermes...

Dior offers soap for all most popular perfumes from their assortment: Dune, Dolce Vita, Miss Dior, Diorissimo, Poison, Hypnotic Poison, Fahrenheit etc. They have elegant and tasteful packages which accompany their perfume lines in an appropriate way. As for Yves Saint Laurent, Opium and Nu have a very catchy design. Lancome offers their Tresor, while Hermes presents Hermes 24 Fauborg soap.

Another famous house offering soap is L'Occitane. Among their products you can find natural soap with the scent of honey, vanilla, rose, mimosa, olive oil, olive leaves and lavender. They have characteristic and recognizable shapes, which follow design of their fragrant lines.

A modern soap producer is Lush. Their manufacture appeared in 1995 on the market, and they have produced natural, fresh cosmetic products in the city of Pull in southwest England.

Hand-made soap of various colours and designs can be bought in store per grams. When you step inside their world, you feel like you are in a giant cake-house. As they say, they are the only company which uses real jasmine extract (which is more expensive than gold!) in their products.

Their main concern is quality and satisfied customers. They prepared a surprise for Christmas and designed soap and other products in holiday spirit.

Soap manufacturer Herbaria Soap offers natural soap of various fragrant notes. What caught my attention was chocolate soap, which includes another 30 natural notes of flowers, fruit, spices and herbs.

Some of the most important soap is the one we have contact with in our earliest and most sensitive age – baby soap.

Baby's skin is silky and fragrant by itself, so you must be careful with the choice of soap. Mild i.e. neutral soap does not contain colour or fragrance and is ideal for babies. They often contain chamomile or lavender extract, they do not irritate skin or eyes and are therefore perfect for the first joyful baths of the youngest family members.

For older children, there is soap of cheerful design, different shapes and colours, made to prolong children's play on everyday fragrant baths.

Soap production has become a real art. Masters of manufacture surprise us with design and quality every day.