Fer à Cheval

Fer à Cheval is a French soap maker based in Marseille, founded in 1856 [2]. Operated by the company Savonnerie du Fer-à-cheval, it produces traditional Marseille soap and related body and household products, and runs what it describes as the oldest soap factory in the city still in operation. The brand is active, with new product launches through 2025 and fresh editorial and blog content into early 2026.

The factory sits at 66 chemin de Sainte-Marthe in the 14th arrondissement of Marseille. Since 2013 it has been owned by the Seghin family, with Raphaël Seghin as president and his brother Yannick as vice-president [10].

The site began not as a soap works but as a candle factory, established in the Marseille countryside around 1850. A few years later, in 1856, part of it was converted to soap production and the Fer à Cheval — French for "horseshoe" — brand was created [2]. The name draws on the horseshoe as a traditional symbol of luck and fortune.

In 1900 the soap factory took a gold medal at the Universal Exhibition in Paris, an award the company still cites for the quality of its soaps. Over the following decades the business passed through several hands and mergers: a 1953 merger involving the Antonin Roux oil mills and the J.B. Paul soap factory, and a 1974 acquisition by the Salvador group, which for years also manufactured the well-known Le Chat Marseille soap.

Ownership changed again in the 2000s. In 2003 the brand passed to the Compagnie des Détergents et du Savon de Marseille [2]. After the company was placed in judicial restructuring (redressement judiciaire) in 2012 [10], the Fer à Cheval brand was bought in 2013 by the Seghin family through the Nouvelle Compagnie des Détergents et du Savon de Marseille (NCDSM) [10]. The brand's own history page describes the 2013 purchase more loosely as taking place "10 years later" than 2003; editorial coverage dates the Seghin acquisition specifically to 2013, following the 2012 restructuring [2][10].

Under the new owners, production that had largely served professional buyers was reoriented toward selling directly to consumers, and the historic brand was placed back at the centre of the business.

In January 2019 the soap factory was inscribed as a Historic Monument [7]. The protection covers the façades and roofs of the production workshop and the cauldron building, which holds seven riveted sheet-metal vats and older equipment across three levels. It is the only soap factory among roughly ninety historic monuments listed in Marseille. The company also reports holding the Entreprise du Patrimoine Vivant (Living Heritage Enterprise) label and being a founding member of the Union des Professionnels du Savon de Marseille [9]. In 2021 the brand was selected to support the French national football team during the European Championship [7].

The factory is open to visitors, offering free guided tours of about 45 minutes, and the company frames this access as part of preserving a craft passed between generations of master soap makers.

Fer à Cheval makes soap by the traditional Marseille cauldron process, which it calls saponification "according to the true 'Marseillaise' method." Its signature item is a four-ingredient pure-olive Marseille soap cube; the wider range includes liquid black soap, perfumed liquid soaps in scents such as lavender, rose and jasmine amber, body care, and household products. The hero ingredient across the line is olive oil, alongside other vegetable oils.

The company says its soaps are made without dyes, preservatives or added fragrances, using vegetable oils only. According to one retailer description, the pure-olive soap is "extra pure and hypoallergenic… of 100% natural origin, and palm oil free." Fer à Cheval ties its method to historical recipe standards, describing the cube as made according to the recipe "certified by Colbert's Edict in 1688 and confirmed by Napoleon Bonaparte's decree of 1812" [2].

The brand positions itself around authenticity, tradition and the safeguarding of Marseille's soap-making heritage. Its stated ambition is to "safeguard a part of Marseille's heritage and preserve ancestral know-how by restoring Marseille Savon to its letters of nobility." President Raphaël Seghin sums up the handmade character with the line "Our soap is not perfect, it is alive" [1]. The company markets the products for the whole family and notes that Marseille soap suits all skin types and doubles as a multi-purpose household cleaner.

The brand is active and operating from its Marseille factory. The most recent documented blog activity is a post from January 2026, and 2025 saw several launches, including new perfumed hand creams, a fabric softener and redesigned scented soap collections [4]. Editorial coverage from 2025 reports a workforce of roughly thirty people. The products are distributed across multiple markets.