Olive Pomace Soap

This traditional soap from Tripoli, Lebanon, made by the country's oldest still operating factory, is exceptional in its use of mechanically-extracted solvent-free olive pomace oil. Second press, metraf, or "pomace" oil is usually extracted using hexane or other solvents. Masbanat Awaida, by contrast, commissions oil from village business who use the traditional method of heat, water, and extreme pressure to produce a pomace oil that retains its full natural fragrance and contains no residues from processing.

Called Marseille soap in France, olive pomace soap was brought to Europe from the Levant after the end of the Crusades, a time when soap was a novelty and was uneconomical to make from edible first press oil. It is often considered the premier traditional olive soap in Europe. Awaida's Savon El-Nasser (The Helper), rooted where the soap first was invented, is arguably the finest of its kind in the world today.