Hasta La Ideas

Rich, handmade soaps pay tribute to pirates and perfume from historic New Orleans

As a family-run business, New Orleans-based Sweet Olive Soap Works believes in working with fellow sustainably minded people to keep production local and customers supplied with the best ingredients available. So to make everyone and their skin happy Sweet Olive makes each olive oil-based product by hand with nutrient rich, Louisiana-grown ingredients, using the cold process method and curing each batch for a month. The mild, moisturizing and handmade soap offers the body benefits by avoiding chemicals and synthetic dyes while naturally slowing the skin’s aging process through hydration.

The line’s signature variety is, of course, the Louisiana Sweet Olive, but our favorites of the slab-cut soaps were the Vetiver and Goat’s Milk bar and the Lafitte 1815. The silky Vetiver and Goat’s Milk pays homage to New Orlean’s French heritage, blending the Creole culture’s signature Vetiver fragrance—first imported to the colonies from East India—with creamy goat’s milk and notes of almond oil and sandalwood.

Named for the French Pirate who helped defend New Orleans against the British in 1815, the masculine Lafitte 1815 combines fragrant oak moss, sandalwood and light undertones of cedarwood and black amber. Plus, the activated charcoal acts as a natural solution for drawing toxins from the skin, and gives the bar its dark hue.

For more information on Sweet Olive Soap Works and their wide variety of handmade soaps check online where the 4.3 ounce bars sell for around $6 a bar.