Rive is our deep-cleansing bar, and it is made for a particular kind of skin and a particular kind of day. If your skin runs oily, or if you work somewhere your skin is constantly exposed to grime, smoke, grease, dust or chemicals — kitchens, workshops, job sites, studios, long shifts in the city — Rive is the bar for you. Activated charcoal draws impurities out of the pores and carries them away in the rinse, leaving the skin clean in a way that gentler bars are not designed to. It works anywhere on the body, hair included.

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. Many of our customers use Rive as their shampoo, especially those with an oily scalp.

For a deeper clean, lather the bar onto a small organic cotton washcloth and scrub your skin with it. A loofah or any natural-fibre scrub works just as well. Take your time and clean yourself well; Rive is built for it.

Now the part that matters most: leave the lather on your body for two to three minutes. This is when the charcoal does its work, binding to the oil and impurities sitting in the skin, while the organic oils and shea butter in the bar leave nourishment behind. This is where the magic of Soap Therapy happens, so do not rush it.

While you wait, breathe in. Organic anise is warm, sweet and faintly liquorice-like, and it cuts through the day in a way that feels clean rather than perfumed.

Then rinse well. If you used Rive 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 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. If you have oily skin or a hard-working job, Rive is well suited to the days you need it most, and a gentler bar such as Wellborn or Gloam can fill the days in between. The face, armpits and groin 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.

Activated charcoal may leave a faint grey mark on a light washcloth or soap rest. It rinses out and is nothing to worry about.

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. The Travel bar (40 g) is good for a week away from home.

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 Anise Seeds

Ground and folded into the bar, they give Rive its warm, faintly liquorice scent and a fine, gentle exfoliating texture that helps lift grime from the skin.

Activated Charcoal Powder

The deep-cleansing heart of Rive. Its porous surface binds to oil, dirt and impurities in the pores and carries them away in the rinse, without stripping the skin.