Tuesday 15 October 2013

Soap and the British Economy





There's a hackneyed narrative of national decline that goes something like this: Britain used to be Great when it bashed bits of metal together and made Stuff and now we're overrun by advertisers and estate agents. Things are more complicated (in 2008 we were the sixth biggest manufacturer in the world) but it is true that London used to be full of people making things (ostrich feather dyers, wooden pulley makers, people who used dog shit to tan leather...) and now it's mostly not. This is not wholly a bad thing (see above re: dog shit) but one of the many things to love about Hornsey Road forcefield is that within in it there's light industry galore. We've a make-up school, a French mime academy, a harp-maker, a cabinet maker descended from Richard III and we've also got in the All Natural Soap Co makers of very lovely, well, soaps. 

Eliza started the company because she was struggling to find toiletries that worked for her sensitive skin and soon became addicted to soap-making. Apparently it happens quite often. Bit like horse-riding.

The soaps are made of olive oil, with aromatic plants, charcoal, honey and suchlike added to a secret recipe in a hidden-away workshop.



They're sold in Spitalfields market and should soon be for sale in the Organic Stall.

The only downside to using them is the usual downside to nice things: I'm beginning to dislike my usual second-cheapest-showergel-from-supermarket.

Website

7 comments:

  1. Soap looks lovely, I will try and track it down. I'm a bit unnerved that simultaneously (ie today) on a facebook discussion the use of pure in tanning leather has popped up. Does this mean it's about to have its own revival moment? Soaps made of dogshit to tan human hides?

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  2. Thanks very much for doing a piece on our soaps. I promise that nothing to with dogs has or ever will enter our range :)

    If you're interested, the bar soap pictured above is the Minty Fresh Scrub here: http://www.allnaturalsoap.co.uk/product/minty-fresh-scrub-bar/

    and the pretty ones will soon appear here: http://www.allnaturalsoap.co.uk/product-category/gifts/pretty/ (they're still curing - soap gets better with age)

    And...here's a secret discount code just for the Hornsey Blog readers:
    hornseyroad (exactly as written)

    This will give you 10% off on the site until 15th November.

    ~Eliza

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  3. I had a look in organic stall last weekend. Was hoping to see these soaps, but they don't seem to be there (yet?) It'll make a good christmas present for my mum :-)

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  4. Hi all (particularly Harry),

    Sorry you haven't been able to find us in the Organic Stall as yet.

    Kay's been going through some changes and we just wanted to let him get settled before bombarding him with more product :)

    We'll make sure there are some soaps there by December, and perhaps can even work out a way for orders from our website to be picked up there.

    In the meantime, any questions, I'm on 0207 272 2572 or at eliza@allnaturalsoap.co.uk

    Bye for now,
    Eliza

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  5. please do give my product a visit thanks!
    https://www.fiercenature.co.uk/products/pure-tallow-soap-unscented

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