What Is Aleppo Soap?

A portion of profits from the sale of Aleppo soap will be sent to the Children’s Cancer Centre of Lebanon.

Aleppo soap is a natural soap, also known as Ghar soap, Savon d’alep or Alep soap. In the Arabic language, Sabun Ghar or Sabun Halabi. It is similar to Castile, Nablus or Marseille soap, but with the addition of Laurel oil to the olive oil at between 5% and 70%. It contains no environmentally damaging ingredients such as Palm Oil but instead uses oils from trees that grow naturally in the local environment without damaging the local ecosystem.

The history of Aleppo soap goes back more than 5 thousand years to the city of Aleppo, Syria. It is the origin of the hard soaps used today throughout the world. Completely natural, this soap contains no synthetic additives or artificial colours or preservatives. In addition to the oil, the saponification process uses the added ingredients of Sodium Hydroxide (lye) and water. You can read a short history of soapmaking on the Realm of History website.

Soap boilers pour the mixture of the soap on to a flat surface, like a shallow swimming pool, and then leave it to cool and dry. The resulting block of green, fresh soap is then cut and branded with the maker’s stamp. It takes about six to nine months (sometimes up to 7 years) to dry on racks in well aerated arches, and gradually matures with age into the traditional shape that we see.

Some of the soap available on this website is made in a factory that has been operating over 700 years! There is a video on YouTube showing how the soap is made in this historic factory.