The Full Test is four bars, not one: Flare, Gloam, Rive and Wellborn, each in the 40 g Travel size. It is the way to meet the whole permanent collection before you commit to a full bar, and each Travel bar is good for about a week, so you have a month of showers to find the one your skin loves.

Try them in the order the day suggests. Flare in the morning, eucalyptus sharp and cool to wake you up. Gloam in the evening, lavender soft and calming to close the day. Rive on the days you feel you need a proper reset, activated charcoal pulling deep, especially if your skin runs oily or your work leaves it grimy. Wellborn whenever your skin is asking for gentleness, goat milk and chamomile soothing rather than scrubbing; it is the one to reach for if your skin is sensitive, or for a child.

Whichever bar you pick, the ritual is the same. Run the bar under the water and wet your skin and hair. Take the bar straight to your skin and massage it over your body, into your armpits and groin, anywhere you would normally wash, and work it into your hair. Every one of our bars doubles as a shampoo.

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. With Wellborn, go softly.

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 each 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. Use the time to breathe in and notice how each scent sits with you; that is the test.

Then rinse well. If you used the bar 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 a bar about three times a week, or every other day. Skin does best when it is not scrubbed clean every single day. The face, armpits and groin can be washed every day. If you want to compare the bars fairly, give each one at least two or three washes before you decide.

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

The simplest approach is to keep one bar in the shower at a time and the other three in their wrapping, somewhere cool, dry and dark, such as a linen cupboard or a bedroom drawer. Rotating bars in and out of the shower is fine too, but every bar you leave in a wet room is slowly softening, so bring one in when you want to try it and put it back to dry when you are done with it for the week.

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 small bar left sitting in a puddle will melt away in days rather than weeks.

Let the bar dry fully between uses. Activated charcoal in Rive may leave a faint grey mark on a light washcloth or soap rest; it rinses out and is nothing to worry about.

Stored dry and 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, each Travel bar (40 g) is good for about a week.

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.

Flare – Organic Eucalyptus Essential Oil and Organic Chlorella Powder

Eucalyptus is cool, green and sharp, a wake-up in bar form. Chlorella, a freshwater algae rich in chlorophyll, antioxidants and minerals, gives the bar its deep colour and helps the skin feel refreshed and balanced.

Gloam – Organic Lavender Essential Oil and Organic Madder Root Powder

Lavender is soft, floral and calming, the scent of a day winding down. Madder root, a plant dye used for thousands of years, gives the bar its warm burgundy colour and has long been valued in Ayurvedic tradition for its gentle character on the skin.

Rive – Organic Anise Seeds and Activated Charcoal Powder

Ground anise seeds give the bar its warm, faintly liquorice scent and a fine exfoliating texture. Activated charcoal binds to oil, dirt and impurities in the pores and carries them away in the rinse, without stripping the skin.

Wellborn – Organic Goat Milk Powder and Organic Chamomile Flowers

Goat milk, rich in fats, lactic acid and vitamins, makes the lather creamy and mild and leaves even reactive skin feeling calm and soft. Chamomile flowers are blended in for their soothing character and a faint, honeyed sweetness.