Dispatches from
where the soap is made.
Six field notes from a year on the road — Aleppo, the Westfjords, Salon-de-Provence, Nagano, the High Atlas, and the Chiricahua Mountains. Traditional soap making, written from the cauldron and the curing rack.
The Last Soap Makers of Aleppo
Inside the thousand-year-old workshops where olive oil and laurel oil are still hot-processed by hand into the purest natural soap on earth.
Read the dispatch →
Nº 02Kelp, Cold Water, and the Quiet Genius of the Westfjords
How a fourth-generation seaweed harvester on Iceland's lonely north coast makes the most mineral-dense bath bar we have ever tested.
Nº 03Savon de Marseille: The Twelve-Hour Soap
Why the green olive-oil soap of Provence has been protected by royal edict since 1688 — and why almost everything sold under its name today is a fake.
Nº 04A Bath in the Mountains of Nagano
What the Japanese hinoki cypress tradition can teach a Western soap maker about scent, restraint, and the dignity of a single ingredient.
Nº 05The Argan Cooperatives of the High Atlas
On a women-run argan oil cooperative outside Essaouira, and the ingredient that quietly outperforms every premium moisturiser we have ever tested.
Nº 06Field Note from the Sierra Blanca: The Apache Bar Begins
Three days in the high desert with a sage harvester on the edge of the old Apache homelands — and the longer, slower conversation we have only just begun with the Mescalero themselves.
Shorter pieces from the curing rack — on ingredients, methods, and the questions our customers actually ask. Re-angled from older essays as we sunset our earlier shop.
Wº 01The Dangers of Modern Soaps: What's Actually in the Bottle
Parabens, sulfates, triclosan, phthalates — the endocrine-disrupting chemicals hiding in your drugstore soap, and the older bar that doesn't need any of them.
Wº 02The Cost of Doing Nothing
On scarcity, comfort, and the slow accumulation of things you almost did — written from a curing rack.
Wº 03Is Lye Natural? A Plain Answer From the Soap Cauldron
Lye is wood ash and rainwater, older than writing, and gone from the bar by the time you hold it. A plain explanation of what lye is and why a soap without it is not really soap.
Wº 04Aleppo Soap for Hair: What It Does to Your Scalp
Aleppo soap for hair is not a TikTok trick or a shampoo substitute — it is what people used before shampoo existed, and the laurel oil in it does something specific your shampoo cannot.