ST NICHOLAS

A red hat with a white bobble, a bushy ginger-and-white beard and a small red nose — a whole fairy-tale grandad smiles out of this soap. St Nicholas is a vegan Christmas soap with a festive scent without the sugar: sparkling lime and grapefruit, pine needles, warm clove and cedarwood.

A Christmas soap that needs no wrapping

We cut every face by hand with a wire, so no two St Nicholases pull the same face — one has a thicker beard, another a bolder bobble. That is also why it works as a gift in its own right: under the tree, in a parcel or as a small token for Christmas Eve or wedding guests.

The scent is citrus-spicy-woody and made up, down to the last drop, of pure essential oils. Lime and grapefruit fizz on top, pine adds the needles and clove with cedar a warm base that leaves the bathroom smelling of Advent. A strip of activated charcoal also found its way into the recipe.

Under the hat is an honest vegan recipe: no palm oil, the cold process and glycerine that stays where it formed during saponification — in the soap. Then just the shelf, at least 30 days of curing and a check of every bar before packing; so we start thinking about festive soaps long before Advent.

As with every natural scent, the essential oils here carry their natural allergens — not a flaw in the recipe, just an honest label. What those words at the end of the INCI list really mean is explained in our article on allergens in cosmetics.

To make St Nicholas last as long as possible — easily until next winter — let him drain properly on a soap dish between washes — a permanent stay in a puddle is not one of his hobbies. And when you are putting together a Christmas mood, you will find more festive faces and patterns among our design soaps.