Scored some Nablus and Olive/Laurel Soap Locally

[SimpleSoaper]

How did both bars of soap perform when you tested them?

I like both of these bars. As far as sudsing goes, they are both about average for these types of traditionally made olive oil soaps. They are on par with the Nablus, Aleppo, and Marseilles soaps (the Marseilles is the highest sudsing). I have a water softener though, so I usually don't have any problem with later. Both bars are probably on the high end of the likability curve for the soaps I've posted in this thread, especially the olive oil bar. As I said above, the Patounis company states that the olive oil bar is their mildest, and that the pomace bar possesses a higher level of cleaning, but my experience was the opposite. Both bars are fine for summer use, but I shower twice per day and they may be a bit much for the dry winter. Both are very hard and last as long as any soap I've used (I do tend to go through soap quickly though).

 

[TheStat]

I like both of these bars. As far as sudsing goes, they are both about average for these types of traditionally made olive oil soaps. They are on par with the Nablus, Aleppo, and Marseilles soaps (the Marseilles is the highest sudsing). I have a water softener though, so I usually don't have any problem with later. Both bars are probably on the high end of the likability curve for the soaps I've posted in this thread, especially the olive oil bar. As I said above, the Patounis company states that the olive oil bar is their mildest, and that the pomace bar possesses a higher level of cleaning, but my experience was the opposite. Both bars are fine for summer use, but I shower twice per day and they may be a bit much for the dry winter. Both are very hard and last as long as any soap I've used (I do tend to go through soap quickly though).

I finally got my hands on original aleppo soap from Syria while on vacation in Vegas, and I'll post some pics when I get home in a couple days.

 

[TheStat]

I like both of these bars. As far as sudsing goes, they are both about average for these types of traditionally made olive oil soaps. They are on par with the Nablus, Aleppo, and Marseilles soaps (the Marseilles is the highest sudsing). I have a water softener though, so I usually don't have any problem with later. Both bars are probably on the high end of the likability curve for the soaps I've posted in this thread, especially the olive oil bar. As I said above, the Patounis company states that the olive oil bar is their mildest, and that the pomace bar possesses a higher level of cleaning, but my experience was the opposite. Both bars are fine for summer use, but I shower twice per day and they may be a bit much for the dry winter. Both are very hard and last as long as any soap I've used (I do tend to go through soap quickly though).

After coming home and using the soap, the soap performed very well with a lot of lather. It is indeed green inside, as I've used the soap, the bar has turned from golden to a deep green. This batch of soap may or may not be the last batch they made in Aleppo before they decided to flee, but that may not be true as the western side of the city is relatively peaceful, so some factories may still operate. On the label it says "new generation" but I'm not really sure what that means. There is also a description on the back of the box in Arabic, but I don't know what it says. Overall it's one of the best soap bars I've used, and I hope I can find some where I live. Here are some pics:http://imgur.com/a/1slwP

 

[SimpleSoaper]

Nice! You can even see the imprints of where the other bars were stacked on top of it to dry when it was still soft. Can you comment on the smell? I'm curious if most all Aleppo soap has the same smell. If you can find some Kiss My Face olive oil soap, that's about what mine smells like.

 

[TheStat]

Nice! You can even see the imprints of where the other bars were stacked on top of it to dry when it was still soft. Can you comment on the smell? I'm curious if most all Aleppo soap has the same smell. If you can find some Kiss My Face olive oil soap, that's about what mine smells like.

My aleppo soap smells pretty much like laurel berry oil, no industrial/kerosene smell. I also think I have found a picture of crude pomace olive oil: http://imgur.com/sIe0cB1

 

[reflection]

For the record, I ended up cutting the olive oil bar in half as well, and its inside was lighter than the outside, with just barely the slightest hint of green. I should add that the soap savings you see in the picture above are from when I cut the pomace bar - I probably should have reversed the bars when I took the pic...

If I can ever lay my hands on some raw olives, I'll try making my own oil for some soap. Youtube has several DIYers using various extraction techniques.

all these soaps look really lovely. i am going to have to stop by one of the markets in town and see if they have aleppo soap. it sounds great.

i also buy the kiss my face OO soap but i would describe the smell quite differently than you. i think it smells very earthy. i remember one reviewer on amazon saying they thought it smelled like dirt, lol. seems rather accurate. it's an ok soap. nothing great but it's inexpensive. it's nice to use a true castile though.

too bad my grandfather isn't still alive. he used to cure olives from his trees and i could have sent you some. he had all kinds of goodies: pomegranates and grape leaves too for stuffed grape leaves.

i read one of the older threads on the aleppo soap and it totally confused me as to what is causing the green & the brown colors. either way i like it and it is going on the list of soaps to make one day.

eta: question: for those of you who have made it did yours start out green? i see a few pics on another thread where they look tan and am wondering if they were first green.

 

[TheStat]

all these soaps look really lovely. i am going to have to stop by one of the markets in town and see if they have aleppo soap. it sounds great.

i also buy the kiss my face OO soap but i would describe the smell quite differently than you. i think it smells very earthy. i remember one reviewer on amazon saying they thought it smelled like dirt, lol. seems rather accurate. it's an ok soap. nothing great but it's inexpensive. it's nice to use a true castile though.

too bad my grandfather isn't still alive. he used to cure olives from his trees and i could have sent you some. he had all kinds of goodies: pomegranates and grape leaves too for stuffed grape leaves.

i read one of the older threads on the aleppo soap and it totally confused me as to what is causing the green & the brown colors. either way i like it and it is going on the list of soaps to make one day.

eta: question: for those of you who have made it did yours start out green? i see a few pics on another thread where they look tan and am wondering if they were first green.

I believe that in order to get a very green aleppo soap you have to use crude pomace olive oil which is extremely green(pic above) and is hard to find, and you also have to use green laurel berry oil. The people who made the tan aleppo soap probably used normal olive oil and/or a yellow/brown laurel berry oil since it varies. You most likely aren't going to have any problem finding some aleppo soap in LA.

 

[reflection]

I believe that in order to get a very green aleppo soap you have to use crude pomace olive oil which is extremely green(pic above) and is hard to find, and you also have to use green laurel berry oil. The people who made the tan aleppo soap probably used normal olive oil and/or a yellow/brown laurel berry oil since it varies. You most likely aren't going to have any problem finding some aleppo soap in LA.

wow. that is some green OO. i wonder if using a very green-colored EVOO might be a good idea for this. what do you aleppo soap lovers say? is that messing with the recipe too much? this one looks quite green as well and is available in a big tin for about the same price as some other pricey brands when bought in this size.

 

[TheStat]

wow. that is some green OO. i wonder if using a very green-colored EVOO might be a good idea for this. what do you aleppo soap lovers say? is that messing with the recipe too much? this one looks quite green as well and is available in a big tin for about the same price as some other pricey brands when bought in this size.

You could definitely use EVOO but many soapmakers use crude pomace olive oil and pomace olive oil since it is cheaper than EVOO. Also pomace and crude pomace have more unsaponifiables than EVOO which makes the soap better.

 

[topofmurrayhill]

I used a very green laurel oil but it didn't do the trick. You can see in the Aleppo soap making pics their batter is very green the whole time, long before the laurel oil is added.

Would love to acquire some crude pomace. The olive pomace oil we usually get is as far as I know a refined product that can be blended with olive oil and sold for food purposes. I guess that makes it very different from crude pomace -- in color and other respects.

 

[reflection]

You could definitely use EVOO but many soapmakers use crude pomace olive oil and pomace olive oil since it is cheaper than EVOO. Also pomace and crude pomace have more unsaponifiables than EVOO which makes the soap better.

oh, i think i finally understand why people use pomace instead of EVOO now, besides the price. i've heard though that grade A or pure is probably best though. i do love the dark green color of my kiss my face soap but the soap itself doesn't really thrill me. i thought that was because it is probably made with pomace which i'd think is lower quality. not sure what to think now. it's quite slimy even sitting on a wood pallet dish that gets lots of air circulation.

I used a very green laurel oil but it didn't do the trick. You can see in the Aleppo soap making pics their batter is very green the whole time, long before the laurel oil is added.

so, i guess getting the green center is probably a really tough thing to achieve. if no green center i'd probably just buy it instead of making it. the nerdy farm wife made some with EVOO and her bars look light green upon molding. i wonder if hers will turn tan outside. i'll ask her in 9 months if i remember.

 

[reflection]

what about contacting uc davis olive center for some crude pomace? they have 3 orchards so might at least have some contacts.

 

[topofmurrayhill]

what about contacting uc davis olive center for some crude pomace? they have 3 orchards so might at least have some contacts.

That sounds worth a try. Olive oil soap as a general rule doesn't excite me, but what's exciting about this is the possibility of reproducing something traditional. You look at a real Aleppo soap and you know you're looking at something that has been made for a long, long time. Unlike castile, which in truth is always "bastile" the way crafters make it, it's at least possible that reasonably authentic Aleppo soap could be reproduced with some experimentation and cleverness -- if we had the right raw materials. It's a hot process soap, which is something crafters can do.

 

[TheStat]

what about contacting uc davis olive center for some crude pomace? they have 3 orchards so might at least have some contacts.

I'll try contacting them and also growers in Norcal to see if they have some crude pomace during the olive harvest season.

 

[SimpleSoaper]

I made a few hot process soaps from olive and laurel oil back in Dec-Feb. The laurel oil scent came through in the finished product, but smells nothing like the Aleppo soap I bought. My 25% laurel oil soap started out a dark green and has become a bit lighter colored after 6-7 months, but it has in no way turned brown. It is also in no way that magical green color of the real stuff. You can see pics here (more pics on the 2nd page):
http://www.soapmakingforum.com/showthread.php?t=57864

I also made some 100% EVOO hot process soap from WalMart brand EVOO (see the pic above). It started life a light green, and has become a bit brown over the months. A few weeks ago I cut the end off of a bar to see what the inside was like, and sure enough the core was light green. Unfortunately I didn't care for it at all as a soap. I'll age to the one year mark and give it another try.

Actually, I prefer any of these "traditional" olive oil soaps I've bought (even the Kiss My Face and Papoutsanis soaps) to anything I've made so far.

To complete my traditional olive oil soap buying binge, I just purchased a 600g cube of fresh Savon de Marseille off eBay. I've been waiting for a while for a fresh shipment to show up. When it's fresh from the factory, it's so soft that you can deform it by squeezing in your hand. I cut the cube into bars and set it to dry for a few weeks before use. When it's fully dry it gets very hard and brittle. I would love to find out the process for making these traditional olive oil soaps so I could make my own.

 

[TheStat]

I made a few hot process soaps from olive and laurel oil back in Dec-Feb. The laurel oil scent came through in the finished product, but smells nothing like the Aleppo soap I bought. My 25% laurel oil soap started out a dark green and has become a bit lighter colored after 6-7 months, but it has in no way turned brown. It is also in no way that magical green color of the real stuff. You can see pics here (more pics on the 2nd page):
http://www.soapmakingforum.com/showthread.php?t=57864

I also made some 100% EVOO hot process soap from WalMart brand EVOO (see the pic above). It started life a light green, and has become a bit brown over the months. A few weeks ago I cut the end off of a bar to see what the inside was like, and sure enough the core was light green. Unfortunately I didn't care for it at all as a soap. I'll age to the one year mark and give it another try.

Actually, I prefer any of these "traditional" olive oil soaps I've bought (even the Kiss My Face and Papoutsanis soaps) to anything I've made so far.

To complete my traditional olive oil soap buying binge, I just purchased a 600g cube of fresh Savon de Marseille off eBay. I've been waiting for a while for a fresh shipment to show up. When it's fresh from the factory, it's so soft that you can deform it by squeezing in your hand. I cut the cube into bars and set it to dry for a few weeks before use. When it's fully dry it gets very hard and brittle. I would love to find out the process for making these traditional olive oil soaps so I could make my own.

For nablus and aleppo soaps refer to this thread. For Savon de Marseille refer to this and this website.

 

[reflection]

That sounds worth a try. Olive oil soap as a general rule doesn't excite me, but what's exciting about this is the possibility of reproducing something traditional. You look at a real Aleppo soap and you know you're looking at something that has been made for a long, long time. Unlike castile, which in truth is always "bastile" the way crafters make it, it's at least possible that reasonably authentic Aleppo soap could be reproduced with some experimentation and cleverness -- if we had the right raw materials. It's a hot process soap, which is something crafters can do.

yes, there is something lovely about these old products that have stood the test of time. i tend to like both things that are very old & very new.

now why do you say castiles are always bastiles?

I'll try contacting them and also growers in Norcal to see if they have some crude pomace during the olive harvest season.

i didn't even know about uc davis' olive center but i knew that cal tech had made some olive oil from their campus olives and when i went to search for it i found the davis center. pretty cool. they are even selling their olive oil & some bath products. did you read the story? i like how it was a guy with an italian-sounding name that said to just make the problem olives into olive oil.

I made a few hot process soaps from olive and laurel oil back in Dec-Feb. The laurel oil scent came through in the finished product, but smells nothing like the Aleppo soap I bought. My 25% laurel oil soap started out a dark green and has become a bit lighter colored after 6-7 months, but it has in no way turned brown. It is also in no way that magical green color of the real stuff. You can see pics here (more pics on the 2nd page):
http://www.soapmakingforum.com/showthread.php?t=57864

I also made some 100% EVOO hot process soap from WalMart brand EVOO (see the pic above). It started life a light green, and has become a bit brown over the months. A few weeks ago I cut the end off of a bar to see what the inside was like, and sure enough the core was light green. Unfortunately I didn't care for it at all as a soap. I'll age to the one year mark and give it another try.

hey, that's cool that you are seeing the colors. hopefully, the soap will mellow in time. do you know who makes the walmart EVOO? i believe kirkland makes the costco OO from what others have said here. i was planning on buying the kirkland EVOO from amazon.

Actually, I prefer any of these "traditional" olive oil soaps I've bought (even the Kiss My Face and Papoutsanis soaps) to anything I've made so far.

well, they've got a few years on us in practicing their soaping craft.

To complete my traditional olive oil soap buying binge, I just purchased a 600g cube of fresh Savon de Marseille off eBay. I've been waiting for a while for a fresh shipment to show up. When it's fresh from the factory, it's so soft that you can deform it by squeezing in your hand. I cut the cube into bars and set it to dry for a few weeks before use. When it's fully dry it gets very hard and brittle. I would love to find out the process for making these traditional olive oil soaps so I could make my own.

which have you liked the best so far of the traditional soaps you've bought?

i'll be happy when i get my first bastile made. i've almost got all the supplies to start soaping but not quite yet. of course i need some oils as i am out of most all of them currently.

 

[topofmurrayhill]

now why do you say castiles are always bastiles?

I understand that by the time castile-type olive oil soap caught on it was a boiled and salted-out soap. Arguably the process is as important to authenticity as anything else. I wouldn't try to replicate Aleppo soap as CP for instance.

ETA: To explain the issue of "process" to those who don't follow that reasoning, I grabbed this from Wikipedia to explain the "fully boiled soap" process. Unlike our soaps, traditional Castile had the glycerin removed. This is equivalent to the modern industrial process as opposed to CP or HP.

"Adding brine to the boiled liquor made the soap float to the surface, where the soap-boiler could skim it off, leaving the excess lye and impurities to settle out. While Aleppo soap tends to be green, this produced what was probably the first white hard soap, which hardened further as it aged, without losing its whiteness, forming jabón de Castilla."

 

[reflection]

I understand that by the time castile-type olive oil soap caught on it was a boiled and salted-out soap. Arguably the process is as important to authenticity as anything else. I wouldn't try to replicate Aleppo soap as CP for instance.

ETA: To explain the issue of "process" to those who don't follow that reasoning, I grabbed this from Wikipedia to explain the "fully boiled soap" process. Unlike our soaps, traditional Castile had the glycerin removed. This is equivalent to the modern industrial process as opposed to CP or HP.

so then you should be using the grocery store "soap".

"Adding brine to the boiled liquor made the soap float to the surface, where the soap-boiler could skim it off, leaving the excess lye and impurities to settle out. While Aleppo soap tends to be green, this produced what was probably the first white hard soap, which hardened further as it aged, without losing its whiteness, forming jabón de Castilla."

this is getting confusing. all i know about bastiles is that they are predominantly OO but have oils other than OO in them. are they supposed to have salt in them and be CP?

so you are saying aleppo is boiled which for us is HP. bastile is salty CP? castile is aleppo without the glycerin and somehow the process makes it white? i am not quite understanding all this i'm sure.

either way i personally don't think we need to replicate any soap ingredients or process perfectly. like hand stirring. if you are going for authenticity are you prepared to hand stir that castile, bastile, or aleppo for days? or is it weeks? you would probably lose your day job if so.

 

[TheStat]

so then you should be using the grocery store "soap".


this is getting confusing. all i know about bastiles is that they are predominantly OO but have oils other than OO in them. are they supposed to have salt in them and be CP?

so you are saying aleppo is boiled which for us is HP. bastile is salty CP? castile is aleppo without the glycerin and somehow the process makes it white? i am not quite understanding all this i'm sure.

either way i personally don't think we need to replicate any soap ingredients or process perfectly. like hand stirring. if you are going for authenticity are you prepared to hand stir that castile, bastile, or aleppo for days? or is it weeks? you would probably lose your day job if so.

TOMH is saying all these soaps we are talking about are made using the fully boiled process, which includes boiling the soap for several hours or days, and occasionally adding salt or salt water to remove impurities and glycerin from the soap from the soap.