Nablus olive oil soap | صابون نابلسي
100% olive oil soap made traditionally since the 10th century
Considered the best soap in the world by many who use it, Nablus soap has been produced for the last 1000 years out of just olive oil, water, and sodium hydroxide.
https://palestiniansoap.coop/
While super effective at cleaning, it is unscented and has a silky and moisturizing lather that can be used on the hands and face, as a shampoo, underarm deodorant, pet wash, fabric stain remover, and much else.
It's a famous medicine for skin ailments such as dry skin, eczema, and psoriasis.
“The Olive” soap from Nablus, Palestine
Pure
Nablus soap is made from olive oil, water, and lye. The mix is soaked and cooked slowly in a cauldron through a traditional hot process until all of it has been converted to soap and no lye remains.
It is then cooled on a stone floor and cured in chimney-shaped towers for up to 8 months to create a hard, long-lasting, and pure bar. Famously healthy for the skin, Nablus soap is often considered by those who've used it to be the best soap in the world.
Medicinal
Nablus soap is known for its smooth lather that washes away without leaving a film, and for its ability to clean without harming.
It is prescribed in the Mediterranean for skin ailments such as eczema, psoriasis, rashes, dandruff, acne, cold sores, and itchiness.
Just as strong-cleaning as it is mild, it can be used for almost any kind of washing whether household or medical.
Its simplicity makes it a special kind of product that can clean a stain as well as heal a wound.
Original
Nablus soap continues a soap tradition dating back 4500 years to ancient Syria and Iraq: a hot-cooked soap made solely from olive oil.
Europeans adapted the Nablus soap recipe after discovering it during the Crusades, producing the famous vegetable soaps of Castile and Marseilles. Nablus soap is the higher-quality precursor to those better-known descendants.
BTW: For those concerned about lye (sodium hydroxide): All soap has lye in it. That is what makes it soap.
If it doesn't have lye, it isn't soap -- it is a detergent.
Sodium hydroxide lye makes solid soap and potassium hydroxide lye makes liquid soap (like your body wash and hand soaps and liquid dish soap used in the sink).
The lye, if used in the proper proportions, is fully chemically changed into soap as it reacts with the oil.
This process is called "saponification", and some brands will list their ingredients as "saponified oil X" to get around listing lye, because they know people who don't understand how soap is made are afraid of lye.
If you've ever been burned by lye in soap, it is because it did not have enough oil in the recipe to fully saponify the quantity of lye, or it didn't cure long enough before it was sold.
All soap has lye.
