When in France, I love to shop for local bath and beauty products! I was enamored with La Maison de Savon, a very small, local shop located in the heart of lovely Reims, France. The store is quite small, but well organized. Lovely bins of handmade soaps line the walls. I wanted to buy everything in the place, but I had to restrain myself!
I picked four bars of pretty artisan soaps. I bought a local specialty: donkey milk soap, to use during my travels. It was unusual to say the least, but smelled so good! I opted for the vanilla bean scented soap. It took a while for me to get used to the idea that I was bathing in donkey milk (LOL) but it was very nourishing with a hearty lather. I really wish I'd bought more bars to take home as gifts, but it weighed a lot and was a hefty bar of soap!
I also got 3 other bars of various scents: French lavender, bubble gum, and rose. I flew home in late December and have been using one bar of soap for over THREE MONTHS. Yes, THREE months! This stuff lasts forever. It's so high quality. French soap is the best in the world!
They also sell some very nice men's shaving products. My hubby got a few balms and lotions, and he LOVES them. He keeps saying how we have to go back to Reims so he can stock up on more. We haven't been able to find what he purchased for sale anywhere else, so it must just be a locally made or stocked product.
Since we shopped during the holiday season, the women running the store automatically gift wrapped our purchases with a lovely little curled ribbon and tissue paper. The packaging was so pretty! Note that this is a very local shop and is not touristy at all - no English is spoken, and the signs are all in French. Go here if you want to buy something very special and uniquely French! read more