Sunday, May 27, 2007

More than soft soap

People who know me, know I chafe against mass production as well as things that have to be shipped distances. Now I can buy soap made locally -- good soap, beautiful soap.

Last summer at the beach crafts market, my New York friend and I came across a young woman who designed and made her own soap. My friend bought me a beautiful blue square.

That same young woman has opened a Savonerie in the village. The soaps are in all different shapes and colours, including a tube shape in the Catalonian yellow and flecked with orange. For those who want to give an assortment as a gift, there are choices of baskets. Or it is possible to buy just one for personal use.

Something as simple as washing my hands, now has become a pleasure, not just for the beauty of the soap, but the sense that I know who made the soap, what her mother looks like, where she went to school.

It puts the personal into what before was impersonal.

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