For the last few years I have been bouncing around the idea of making a Marseille style soap. For those of you not familiar Marseille soap is a traditional soap that comes from the coastal city of Marseille in southern France. Made almost exclusively from olive oil, sea water and ash from sea vegetation. The mixture is cooked in large vats for upwards of two weeks.  After the soap is cooked it is poured, cut into large cubes, stamped on all 6 sides & left to cure. The stamping really gives the soap cubes their iconic look (IMO). This soap is used for anything and everything. (Laundry, dishes, washing floors, cleaning bathrooms, washing yourself, cleaning jewelry, it can also be used as an insecticide) If you have used a handmade soap before you will be familiar with the squeaky clean feeling that is left on your skin when washing with it. Marseille soap is the same. Seriously if wash dishes with it I find there is no water marks when they dry! It amazing.

However using the name Marseille is similar to Champagne. You can only use the name if it is produced in that region and made in the traditional method. I’m I love with this old world prosses but I don’t have the capacity to boil my soap in big vats for weeks on end in my basement (that is the location of my work space). So I had to tweak the concept a bit.

I precent to you UTILITY SOAP

The Prairie Fire Utility Soap is made with 72 % extra virgin olive oil, organic coconut oil, as well as salt water matching the salinity of the ocean.  The salty water is made with sea salt that was produced on Vancouver island. And in homage to my French inspiration stamped on all six sides. These oversized blocks are hand cut, hand stamped and left to cure for 3 + months.

Utility soap is a great plastic free & chemical free replacement for many home cleaners. The main on being dish soap. One block of utility soap will replace 6-7 bottles of liquid dish soap.