M.E.R is a limited-edition bar made for Mother's Day, and made with women in mind: for the mothers, the daughters, the sisters and the friends who spend their days looking after everyone else. It is a gift bar first, so it was built to feel like one: a soft rose-pink colour from madder root, and the scent of geranium, the flower that has stood in for the rose in gardens and perfumery for centuries. It is for hair, face and body, from one bar, and it is meant to be a few quiet minutes that belong to you.

Start by running the bar under the water and wetting your skin and hair. Then take the bar straight to your skin. Massage it over your body, into your armpits and groin, anywhere you would normally wash, and work it into your hair. Like all our bars, it doubles as a shampoo, and it leaves hair soft and lightly scented.

For a deeper clean, lather the bar onto a small organic cotton washcloth and sweep it over your skin. A loofah or any natural-fibre scrub works just as well. Take your time. This is your moment, not a chore.

Now the part that matters most: leave the lather on your body for two to three minutes. The organic oils, shea butter and botanicals in the bar carry nutrients that your skin can drink in while the soap sits. This is where the magic of Soap Therapy happens, so do not rush it.

While you wait, breathe in. Organic geranium is green, rosy and a little sweet, and it has been a woman's oil for a very long time. In aromatherapy it is the oil most often reached for during the shifts of perimenopause and menopause, valued for its balancing, steadying character when moods and temperatures swing, and for its ability to lift the spirit without overwhelming it. On the skin it is gently toning and astringent, leaving it feeling firm, smooth and fresh, while the rose-pink of organic madder root, a plant dye used for thousands of years, gives the bar its colour naturally.

Then rinse well. If you used M.E.R. on your hair, rinse twice: once after washing your hair, and once more toward the end of your shower so nothing is left behind. Pat dry with a soft cotton towel.

A note on frequency. For a full-body wash, we recommend using the bar about three times a week, or every other day. Skin does best when it is not scrubbed clean every single day, and the days in between let its natural oils do their work. The face, armpits and groin are the exception: those areas can be washed with the bar every day.

A cold-process bar cured for two months is hard, dense and long-lasting, but it is still a natural soap without synthetic hardeners, so how you store it between uses makes a real difference to how long it lasts.

After each use, rinse any lather off the bar and set it on a coconut fibre soap rest. The loose, springy mesh holds the bar off the surface and lets water fall straight through, so the bar dries from every side and the fibre itself dries quickly too. It is a natural material, plastic-free, and can be composted at the end of its life. Avoid closed dishes or anything that lets water pool under the bar.

Keep the bar out of the direct stream of the shower. A bar left sitting in a puddle will soften and melt away far faster than it should.

Let the bar dry fully between uses. If two people share a shower, two bars on two rests will outlast one bar used twice as often.

Unused bars keep best somewhere cool, dry and dark, such as a linen cupboard, with a little air around them. Stored this way, away from moisture, a bar has no expiry date. It will keep curing and hardening slowly, and it will still be good to use years from now. The scent softens gradually over time, and natural botanicals can deepen slightly in colour; both are normal and neither affects the soap.

Cared for this way, a Ritual bar (160 g) lasts one person about a month to a month and a half, and a Practice bar (80 g) about half that.

Organic Extra Virgin Olive Oil

The base of every Soap Therapy bar. Rich in oleic acid and squalene, it cleans gently and leaves the skin soft and moisturized rather than stripped.

Organic Unrefined Coconut Oil

Gives the bar its cleansing power and its rich, bubbly lather, and helps the bar stay hard and long-lasting.

Organic Fair Trade Unrefined Shea Butter

Adds a creamy, conditioning richness to the lather and leaves a light protective layer on the skin. Left unrefined so its natural vitamins and fatty acids stay intact.

Organic Extra Virgin Castor Oil

A natural humectant that draws moisture toward the skin and makes the lather silky and stable.

Distilled Water

Dissolves the sodium hydroxide so it can turn the oils into soap. Distilled so no minerals interfere with the bar.

Sodium Hydroxide**

The alkali that transforms the oils into solid soap through saponification. It is fully used up in the process; none remains in the finished bar.

Citric Acid

Fine-tunes the pH of the finished bar so it stays gentle on skin and rinses clean without leaving a film in hard water.

Organic Geranium Essential Oil

The scent of M.E.R. Green, rosy and gently sweet, it has long been a woman's oil in aromatherapy, valued for its balancing, steadying character, and on the skin for a gentle toning effect that leaves it feeling firm and fresh.

Organic Madder Root Powder

A plant root used as a natural dye for thousands of years. Used with a light hand here, it gives M.E.R. its rose-pink colour without any synthetic pigment, and has long been valued in Ayurvedic tradition for its gentle character on the skin.