9 ¾

A platform you will not find on any timetable — and yet everyone who is still secretly waiting for the train to the world of magic finds it. The 9 ¾ design soap layers red and cream stripes like the livery of an old locomotive and carries an embossed number on its front that needs no explaining to anyone. The scent, meanwhile, is entirely earthly and composed with care: lemongrass and mandarin to open, lavender and mint in the background, a touch of geranium on top. The lather is rich and creamy; it cleans the skin without drying it — all it leaves behind is a light natural trace. And the whole soap is vegan.

Magic we are happy to explain

The stripes are not printed. We colour both the red and the cream mass with mineral pigments and pour them into the mould in layers; a wire then cuts the individual bars from the block. That is why the line between red and cream sits a little differently on every bar. On purpose. The base of the recipe is saponified coconut and olive oil — the first takes care of hardness and rich lather, the second of a gentler character — complemented by cocoa and shea butter with sunflower and almond oil. We make it by the traditional cold process, and the scent comes exclusively from essential oils — fragrance blends have no place here. The glycerine that forms naturally during saponification simply stays in the soap: it is a humectant, a substance that binds water.

It all happens here in Prievidza: we weigh the ingredients, mix the oils with a sodium hydroxide solution and let saponification do the transformation. After curing, we take every bar in hand once more, check it and weigh it — bars that do not meet our standards are set aside. Before the soap reaches you, it rests on the shelf for at least 30 days — why soap cures is written up in detail in our journal. And then just one piece of advice from the workshop: give it a soap dish that drains. A permanent stay in a puddle is not among its hobbies. You will find more bars with a story of their own among our design soaps.