Soap has been around since 2800 BC when fats and ash were mixed together. The first trace was found in Babylonia. Early soaps were harsh nothing like the choices we can find today.

Argelès has increased those choices with a new savonerie, the brain child of a young local woman who wasn’t interested in taking a regular job. For the past few years she has made her own soap selling it at art fairs. This year she opened her own shop offering some of the most imaginative soaps I’ve ever seen. Thin tubes, soap necklaces combined with beads, soap wafers that can be stacked like cookies, all types of fragrances, colours and shapes are on offer. In this photo her father runs one of the machines behind the counter producing spaghetti soap. What a delight to be able to find an item so pretty, and so useful while taking my buy locally efforts to even new heights.

And when I suds up in the shower I have a memory of the pleasure of being in an adorable shop, trying to choose between one pretty thing or another, supporting an individual rather than some anonymous shareholder.