Savon du Midi

Savon du Midi is a German soap company that sells traditionally made Provençal soaps, saponified with organic plant oils and enriched with shea butter. Though its French name means "soap of the south" and its soaps are produced in Provence, France, the company itself is based in Korschenbroich, Germany, where it is registered as Treibholz Bio & Naturwaren GmbH [3].

The company began, according to its own account, "over 30 years ago" as a soap-trading business at Berlin's weekly markets, selling soaps made by small firms in southern France [2]. In February 2019 it was acquired by the Treibholz family and folded into their organic-goods company, Treibholz Bio & Naturwaren GmbH, with operations moving from Berlin to Korschenbroich [1].

Savon du Midi's exact founding year is not published. The brand's own site describes its start only as "over 30 years ago," which would place its beginnings in the late 1980s counting back from 2019, but gives no specific year for the Savon du Midi brand itself [2]. The 1978 date that appears in company materials refers to the parent firm Treibholz — founded that year by Gabriele Krüger and Bernhard Bauer, with roots in the anti-nuclear movement at Wyhl in Baden — and not to Savon du Midi [1].

The pivotal recorded event in the brand's history is the 2019 acquisition. Since then, Savon du Midi has operated as part of Treibholz, which hand-packages the soaps in its facility in Korschenbroich and ships them across Europe [1].

Savon du Midi has been owned by Treibholz Bio & Naturwaren GmbH since February 2019 [1]. The company is registered in Korschenbroich, Germany, in the commercial register of the Düsseldorf district court, and its managing directors are listed as Lucia Rose and Noah Scheige [3]. There is a geographic split at the heart of the brand: the legal and commercial home is Germany, while the soaps themselves are made in Provence, France [5].

The core of the range is fine soaps made in Provence using traditional methods. The company says its soaps are saponified exclusively with plant oils from certified organic farming and contain no animal fats [5]. The signature line is the Karitéseifen, shea-butter soaps offered in more than twenty scents, from lavender and lemongrass to sandalwood and sweet almond, with newer varieties such as Vanille Douce and Fleur de Coton. Alongside these sit an argan peeling soap made with ground argan kernels from Morocco and olive-oil soaps blended with green clay.

Savon du Midi positions itself around natural cosmetics and traditional Provençal craftsmanship. Most of its soaps are described as vegan, the exceptions being the honey and milk-and-honey variants. The brand tagline appears in both German and French: "Feine Seifen aus der Provence" (fine soaps from Provence) and "Savon traditionnel de Provence. Pur végétal."

The majority of the soaps carry COSMOS ORGANIC certification, an international standard for organic and natural cosmetics that the company references directly [4]. Beyond ingredients, Savon du Midi emphasises low-impact packaging: many soaps are wrapped only in a simple label or paper band, and a number are sold entirely without plastic. The company states that its storage and operations in the wooden Korschenbroich facility are carbon-neutral.

Coverage of the brand comes chiefly from German natural-cosmetics media. In 2011 the blog Beautyjagd reviewed the 20-gram travel shea-butter soaps and recommended them, noting they cleaned well while having a re-fattening, moisturising effect [6]. The independent consumer-testing organisation ÖKO-TEST assessed the Karité "Zimt-Orange" (cinnamon-orange) soap and rated its ingredients as satisfactory, but criticised it for containing the fragrance allergen Cinnamal at above-norm levels [7].

The brand is active. Under Treibholz it maintains a current product range with new scents, an online shop and retailer list, and active Instagram and Facebook accounts, and it exports to numerous European countries.