A Simpler Life 2018

elmer

The soap I have is a beautiful purple square block, about 4 inches on each side, it came from France, but looks very daunting to try and use in the shower, which is the only place where soap is used, but its so beautiful that Im reluctant to give it to someone else. I think it might last the year in the shower its so big

RainbowHippie

Does anyone know if Marseille soap can be used for laundry? I have a couple of huge bars i bought for about 1 euro in Italy last year, from the laundry section of a cheapy supermarket, I had never heard of it before then. I thought at the time that it might be a French version of Castille soap and be good for making laundry gloop (but have had such success with soap nuts i've not got round to it yet). The packaging has very little information. Has anyone used it for washing clothes?

Primrose you have my sympathy re. tissue fluff! My OH is terrible for leaving all sorts in his pockets. Normally i find them when sorting the washing but had a panic a few weeks ago thinking our washing machine was falling apart, but i had just missed a few screws he'd left in a side pocket...

buildersdaughter

The really large cube (I think equivalent to the 600g on the french soap site) lasts the 2 of us 3 months.

Yes, Marseilles soap can be used for laundry. Traditionally, the green was for personal use, and the white for laundry, but a lot of people saved the more expensive white just for delicates and white things. When I first visited France in the 60s,a number of towns still had communal laundry spaces. There were deep stone sinks with a sloping wall at the front. You spread the washing out on it and rubbed with the soap; being there did wonders for my French (and my arm muscles)! 20 years later, when we took our children camping, some of the more old-fashioned camping sites still had those sinks, and the atmosphere was so like the old laundries! You still spot the occasional one.
I've never tried it for use in a machine, but I do use it for hand washing, and for rubbing on stains.

Marseilles soap is one of my 'everyday' luxuries.

dolly84

RainbowHippie wrote: »

Does anyone know if Marseille soap can be used for laundry? I have a couple of huge bars i bought for about 1 euro in Italy last year, from the laundry section of a cheapy supermarket, I had never heard of it before then. I thought at the time that it might be a French version of Castille soap and be good for making laundry gloop (but have had such success with soap nuts i've not got round to it yet). The packaging has very little information. Has anyone used it for washing clothes?

Primrose you have my sympathy re. tissue fluff! My OH is terrible for leaving all sorts in his pockets. Normally i find them when sorting the washing but had a panic a few weeks ago thinking our washing machine was falling apart, but i had just missed a few screws he'd left in a side pocket...

I looked into soap nuts but went for the Eco Egg for my laundry instead, I would be interested to hear more about using the soap nuts though if you don't mind.

buildersdaughter wrote: »

The really large cube (I think equivalent to the 600g on the french soap site) lasts the 2 of us 3 months.

Yes, Marseilles soap can be used for laundry. Traditionally, the green was for personal use, and the white for laundry, but a lot of people saved the more expensive white just for delicates and white things. When I first visited France in the 60s,a number of towns still had communal laundry spaces. There were deep stone sinks with a sloping wall at the front. You spread the washing out on it and rubbed with the soap; being there did wonders for my French (and my arm muscles)! 20 years later, when we took our children camping, some of the more old-fashioned camping sites still had those sinks, and the atmosphere was so like the old laundries! You still spot the occasional one.
I've never tried it for use in a machine, but I do use it for hand washing, and for rubbing on stains.

Marseilles soap is one of my 'everyday' luxuries.

I use Fairy bar soap as a pre-treatment on stains, it is fantastic and one bar has lasted me years so far.

Siebrie

I have used soap nuts, but I have found that if you use soap nuts exclusively, the laundry gets a bit grey. So now I use them about every other wash, and mainly on darker laundry. They do remove stains and dirt, it's just that after about 5 washes with only soap nuts, my whites are not really white anymore and it all becomes a bit dreary.

Charis

tori.k wrote: »

As a cheaper alternative to savon de Marseille, Holland and Barret do Olivia pure olive oil soap
It only containers Olive oil and mineral salts

And saponifiers.

This is a very balanced account of what is in soap bars, and shows which soaps with 'extra oil' actually dry out the skin.

I quote "Although no unreacted lye remains in the final product, soaps can't be certified organic because lye is a chemical (of moderate toxicity) that was used to create the soap. It is an alkali that burns our eyes. But it is an alkali that turns an oil or fat into soap. Without lye, natural soap does not exist."

There is also a reminder that the label should show that palm oil is responsibly sourced, although even that is open to interpretation. The comments at the bottom of the page are even more interesting than the article.

I was shocked by a recent BBC TV programme (6 days left on catch up). Chris Packham revisited Sumatra, Indonesia, which he had last been to about three decades ago, to try and trace a girl (who would now be in her 30's) who was a member of an indigenous tribe living totally off the land. He described her as a 'perfect human being'. I won't spoil the ending for those who haven't seen it. It is worth watching.

What he found was that masses of the jungle had been ripped out and replanted with oil producing palms. They look like an 80's computer generated forest, all the same tree, all the same size and shape. The map of the forest fires and the effect on the people is shocking too. As was the amount of carbon produced by the fires. The animals and insects, vital for the bisophere, are dying. Anything inhibiting profit is pushed aside. Eventually life in Indonesia will be unsustainable. All this so we can have a more slippery soap

tori.k

Charis wrote: »

And saponifiers.
(

You can't make soap without saponification, the mineral salt, sodium hydroxide ( lye)
Water and olive oil.
There is no palm oil or anything else in it.

RicardaRacoon

Evening all

It is very cold around here, well, "only" -2°C, so it could be worse - and will get worse next week - but there is a silly wind going through everything. I walked home for half an hour today and my ears hurt even with a hat on...
Flat is clean and nice, groceries shopping done, laundry done as well (only waiting for the dryer), so not much to be done over the weekend. So it will be spent inside enjoying simple things; knitting, reading, listening to music or maybe watching a movie or two, pottering about (some birthdays are cominig up, so will have a look at my cardstock and maybe make some new ones plus I have a few small sewing projects I want to do...) and baking. Will most likely go over to my parents tomorrow for knit and natter with Mum and maybe a few games of Ludo (we are serious ludo addicts....) and maybe go to knitting group on Sunday morning if I feel like it...

I had sushi for dinner, off 50% in the supermarket, I do feel guilty for falling for the orange sticker trap and it wasn't even as nice as expected... Well well, I will learn from that mistake too...!

Soap I have switched to using soaps instead of shower gels to save on plastic bottles. Found out that it is more comfortable for me to have relatively small, easy to hold, pieces of soap, so I cut them in half if needed. My soaps are mostly from Lvsh and I tend to pick up one or two at markets or on holidays every now and then (as long I am sure they are cruelty free)

Palm oils really is a problem, especially as it is in so many things and avoiding it completely is almost impossible. Just found out that it is also in my fav cookies...

So, off to the sofa with my knitting and a cuppa before the laptop battery runs out... Too lazy to carry it over to the charger...

Have a nice evening all!

dolly84

I started trying to avoid palm oil after seeing a video of the farmers tying up a baby elephant, when the adults came to try and rescue it they shot them and this was all because they were eating and trampling the crops. I know people have to make a living but there seems to be an insatiable need for palm oil in the western world and people, animals and the environment are suffering greatly because of it.

Cottage_Economy

juliettet wrote: »

Dr Bronners is very good. Can double as shampoo too.

Years ago, before switching to water based paints, we found Dr Bronners would take gloss paint off skin without needing any white spirit. It's good stuff, although I found the rose one a bit unpleasant to smell compared to the citrus one.