A French History of Soap

In the beginning
Thousands of years ago early people cooking their meats over fires noticed after a rainstorm, there was strange foam around the remains of the ashes of their fire. When this foam was used inside their cooking pots they noticed how clean the pots and their hands became.

Hundreds of years later
Goats tallow and ashes from the sacrificial fires on Sapo Hill outside Rome, mixed with rain, flowed down the slopes into the streams where women were washing clothes, found to their delight their washing was cleaner.

In the Middle Ages
The years of the terrible plagues. From the 9th century Marseille emerged as the great soap making centre. The Provence region in France produced olive oils with seawater and ashes from Mediterranean plants to make the first real usable and healthy soaps for washing the body as well as for clothes.

In 1688
A French law passed by King Louis XIV, forbidding the use of animal fats, allowed only soaps to be made from only pure natural ingredients and made to use the now famous ‘Savon de Marseille' mark. You can imagine how unpleasant the animal fat soaps would be.

Between 1811 and 1812
Napoleon 1st published four decrees stipulating the soap mark had to indicate the type of oil used, weight of the bar, the manufacturer and the town from where the soap was made.

Today
Authentic Marseille soaps are still world renowned for their high standard of purity. Containing pure ingredients and the legendary fragrances found nowhere else but in the Provencal countryside. They have no chemicals or synthetic additives that will cause allergies and definitely no animal fats. They contain only the purest of natural ingredients, with a minimum of 72% PURE soap content from olive and vegetable oils, alkaline soda ash from marine plants and sea salt water from the Mediterranean Sea.

Traditional Marseille Soaps are green from olive oils or white from palm oil. The incredible purity and gentle moisturising properties of both varieties make them ideal for sensitive skins, highly recommended by dermatologists all over the world. Marseille soaps are totally biodegradable. Authentic Marseille Soap is stamped with its weight in grams - a practice left over from years ago that allowed households to compare prices and usage.

Savon de Marseille Is proud to be associated with the only remaining traditional soap maker in Marseille. The revival of traditional soaps made from natural ingredients is growing here in Australia. We are able to bring to you this range of beautiful French soaps with vegetable oils, olive oils, palm oils and essentials oils, mixed with the exotic fragrances from floral and fruit plants of Provence. French soaps will always stand alone as the very finest in the world.