Woman with Soap - Femme aux savons - Size #2 / Elite

Woman with Soap –- Femme aux savons

The soap peddler brought to the creche soap from Marseille (Savon de Marseille) a traditionally hard soap made of olive oil and soda ash that has been produced around "Marseille, France, for around 600 years. The first documented soapmaker was recorded there in about 1370. By 1688, Louis XIV introduced regulations in the Edict of Colbert limiting the use of the name savon de Marseille to olive oil based soaps manufactured in and around the Marseille area. The law has since been amended to allow other vegetable oils to be used. By 1913 production had reached 180,000 tons, and in 1924 there were 132 soap making companies in the Marseille and Salon-de-Provence areas combined, but by 2000 only five remained." - Wikipedia

Her soap was vital to all the villagers - she provided the soap used by the washerwomen (Les Bugadieres).

Size #2 / Elite (the 2-3/4 inch - 7 cm size)

Made in France