CHRISTMAS COTTAGE

Brown walls, a snowy roof, white windows and a door that look piped in icing — and a cinnamon stick for a chimney. Christmas Cottage is a vegan soap shaped like a little gingerbread house, and it smells exactly the way it looks: of sweet orange and cinnamon.

Gingerbread you don't eat

Every cottage is decorated on its own, so no two are alike: one has a heart on the gable, another a star, another windows and an outline of tiny dots. It looks like something from the Christmas baking, but it is soap from roof to doorstep — it belongs in the bathroom, not on a plate. Unwrapped, it makes a small token; in its paper box, it is a ready-made gift for under the tree.

The scent is festive without the sugar. Orange peel gives it a fresh opening, Ceylon cinnamon a warm base, and both come from pure essential oils, with no added fragrance. Under the icing is an honest recipe of saponified coconut oil, shea butter, olive and sunflower oil — palm-oil-free. Mineral colourants tint the brown walls and the white roof. We make the soap by the cold process and leave in it the glycerine that forms naturally during saponification.

Both orange and cinnamon essential oils naturally contain fragrance allergens such as limonene, cinnamal and eugenol. They are not added substances but the fruit's and the spice's own components — we declare them on the label, and our article on allergens in cosmetics explains why there is no need to turn them into a bogeyman.

The chimney is a real cinnamon stick and is there purely for decoration — take it out when you start using the cottage. To make the cottage last as long as possible, let it dry out between washes on a soap dish that lets the water drain away — a permanent stay in a puddle would only soften its roof. You will find more festive shapes and scents among our Christmas soaps. And if one cinnamon soap is not enough, try Warming Cinnamon too.