French Soaps Are Back In Stock

By Scott

Our favorite soap is now back in stock! Savon de Marseille soaps are made in the traditional manner near Marseille, France from a mixture of olive and vegetable oils, alkaline ash, and salted water from the nearby Mediterranean Sea. The resulting soap is cut into blocks and put out to dry in the local salty air. All told, it takes the soap masters two weeks to make a block of soap. Truly, an artisanal undertaking, that has been going on in this time honored style since 1683.

We bring in two sizes of the olive oil based soap - a hard milled 300g size (hard milling is where it goes through the milling machine more then once, so there is less moisture in the soap bar than a traditional method) and the 1kg size (that's 2.2 lbs worth of soap!) in the traditional/rustic finish. In the spirit of French companies, we use this soap in our bathrooms here at VO. We cut some off the big block, using an Opinel knife or a wire cutter, put a small amount in each bathroom here and leave the left over soap in a cool, dry place until we need it again. 

Cutting chunks off the 1 kilo, rustic-style soap has been a mainstay of our bike touring kits. Not only can you use it in the shower for your body, hair, and normal washroom routines, it makes a great soap for hand-washing clothes. Keep it in a ziplock plastic bag and throw it in your handlebar bag.

All in all, Savon de Marseille Soap gets the VO Seal of Approval and we know you'll enjoy it, too.