Fab Find of the Week: Roger & Gallet Bois de Santal Soaps

There is a story behind this week’s ‘Fab Find’, which goes back several decades. On Jo’s desk, now used for pens and pencils, she has a vintage Roger & Gallet box which was once filled this Roger & Gallet Sandalwood Soap, which she bought in Paris as a teenager. Astonishingly, after all those years, when you take the lid off the box, it still smells of the soap which nestled inside.

We can’t make promises that the box containing this stack of soap will retain its scent for quite so long. (And besides, that old box is a keepsake; you could hardly say the same of the container for this trio). But encountering the Sandalwood soap from French heritage brand Roger & Gallet at a recent Christmas press showcase reminded us of just how fabulous it still is.

Sandalwood has become a bit of an ingredient du jour in recent times, for its soft, woodsy sensuality. That’s perfectly expressed in this soap, but there’s more there: a resinous quality, a touch of mystery, with notes of geranium, cedarwood and patchouli, too.

Now, we always purpose posh soap in two ways; before it’s pressed into service for washing, our soaps are used to scent drawers. (Lingerie drawers, in particular.) It’s quite simply a waste to keep this in the bathroom cabinet when it could be making your tights smell quite lovely!

Roger & Gallet soaps also have going for them the fact that they last ages, don’t go all squishy, and are all packaged in the distinctive ‘sun-pleat’ wrapping – in this case, pale blue tissue. Most definitely file under ‘affordable luxury’.

We discover only now that the recipe and fragrance for this soap was actually created in 1895. And actually, we’ve a hunch that if we could get our hands on a soap box from back then, you’d still be able to make out the scent of sandalwood, infused into the wrapping…

£14 for soap trio – buy here