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All of our French milled soaps are quadruple (hard) milled.
Pure. Natural. Simple. Soap.
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Traditional craft manufacturing of Marseilles soap
The
creation of genuine Marseilles soap is a complex process that requires
several steps. First, oil is mixed with alkali and sea salt in a large cauldron.
One cauldron can yield up to 8 tons of soap. Olive oil will produce
a green-colored soap and copra with palm oils will make a white-colored
soap. The mixture is made to reach boiling point and cooks for about
8 hours during which the chemical reaction of saponification creates
the soap mixture. |
The
bottom of the cauldron is linked to cement compartments on the first
floor. The mixture is poured slowly while it's still at 60°C
into the cement basins and left to dry for 48 hours. When the soap
is dry it is marked with a special compass in order to be cut into
35 kg blocks then into 2.5 kg bars then into 300g, 400g, 600g and
1kg cubes. |
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The
mixture is then cooked at 100°C for about 4 hours. During this
time the soap maker must stir the mixture so that it does not boil
over. He also regularly collects the rejected alkalis that accumulate
on top of the mixture. At the end of this step, the mixture is washed
with salty water to get rid of any impurities left behind. The soap
maker tastes the mixture. If it is salty, he must wash it again.
If it is sweet, it is ready and there are no soda byproducts left
behind. The mixture is then covered and left to cool and dry for
36 hours. |
The
soap is then stamped and left to dry on wooden boards with space
in between the pieces. It takes up to 15 days to dry a bar of soap
that is 1 cm thick. For fragrance Marseilles soap, the blocks are
made into soap flakes. Fragrance is then added as the mixture is
stirred. The soap is remolded into bars and left to dry. The last
step is stamping of the soap. The soap maker uses an old hand press
for traditional stamping of Marseilles soap.
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| Click here to learn about the history of Marseilles soap | Click here to learn about the misconceptions about soap |
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