At a market in France in September the perfume of these soaps drew me to Aurelie’s stall, the lady who makes them. In response to the many questions I asked about her soaps she invited me to her home in the depths of the French countryside to watch some soap being made. Aurelie is a typically vivacious young French woman and to her audience of four people she gave an extraordinarily passionate demonstration of how they are made, which was more reminiscent of the very best of the TV chefs than of what you would expect of soap-making. If she had scraped the pan with a spoon and offered it to us to lick I think we would all have done so without thinking, such was the sensory appeal of the smell of the herbs and oils and the vision of the thick dark chocolate-coloured mixture with swirls the colour of cream!
Orely soap (she has changed the name to make it easier), is in the shop now price £4.90, with lots of wonderful perfumes: lavender and geranium, orange and cinnamon and honey and almond…..