Felted Soap

Once upon a time, before liquid soaps, shower gels and body scrubs, there was soap. Everybody used it to get clean and smell nice. From the medicinal aromas of Wright’s Coal Tar to the luxury bubbles generated by creamy Camay, there truly was a bar to suit every bath-time. In the move towards more natural ingredients, soap fell by the wayside, perceived as being too drying and harsh on the skin. Then there’s the mess. Who wants a mushy bar of melted goo on the side of the bath? And yet there’s something comforting about the cleansing power of soap. That’s why I decided to do something about it.

First up, to give the soap extra moisturising properties, it’s enriched with lanolin. This is the gentle by-product that comes from wool. That way you can wash away the day without washing away precious moisture from your skin.

Secondly the soap bar is wrapped in natural wool. With felted soap you get a gentle exfoliating rub as it lathers through the wool. Yet it all stays self-contained and near. Besides being a built-in flannel and a kinder way to buff your skin, wool is also naturally anti-bacterial, so germs and odours are given their marching orders!

Also, if you have ever suffered from your soap behaving as if it was alive and escaping your grip at any given opportunity, you can now rest easy. Felted soap’s woollen wrap means you can hang on when the going gets slippery.

About now, you’re probably thinking ‘so what happens when the soap inside shrinks?’ This is where it gets really clever because the wool felted to the soap. As the soap gets smaller, the wool shrinks around it until all you are eventually left with is a small completely biodegradable ball of woolly fluff. Whereas shower gel or liquid soap leaves you with a plastic bottle to recycle, little beau sheep soaps leave nothing behind.