Savonneries Bruxelloises

Savonneries Bruxelloises is a Belgian soap manufacturer based in the Laeken district of Brussels. It makes triple-milled toilet soaps and solid shampoos by traditional methods, and holds a Royal Warrant as a supplier to the Belgian Court. The company markets its heritage from 1926, though records for its predecessor business reach back a few years earlier. It remains an operating business, run today under the corporate entity BeaBa SPRL and still working from its original site in Brussels.

The brand is unusual among small European soap makers for combining a near-century-old workshop with a modern export operation: the factory ships the majority of its output abroad while keeping production in the city where it began.

⚑ Thinner sourcing. The article relies largely on the brand's own statements (T2–T3). Glowpedia is seeking independent sources.

The company's own history places its beginning in 1926, in an old industrial quarter of Laeken, and it consistently presents itself as "a soap made in the heart of Brussels since 1926" [1]. Dutch-language Wikipedia gives an earlier and somewhat different account: it dates the founding to 1922 under the business name Karak, crediting Emile Collin and Alexis Huylenbroeck, with the operation renamed "Nouvelles Savonneries Bruxelloises" in 1953 [7]. The two dates are not necessarily contradictory — the 1922 records concern the predecessor company, while the Savonneries Bruxelloises name and the heritage the brand markets begin in 1926 — but the discrepancy is documented rather than settled.

Accounts of who ran the business also differ. Retailer and editorial narratives credit the Nanson family, describing three generations who succeeded one another at the works [9]. Wikipedia instead attributes the original 1922 founding to Collin and Huylenbroeck, with Henri Nanson taking over the renamed company in 1953 and Roland Nanson later heading it [7]. The brand's own materials do not name an individual founder.

Whichever starting point one takes, the workshop has changed hands several times while staying in Brussels. In 1993 Vincent Laurencin took over the business, later joined by his nephew François Van de Velde [9]. In 2010 the firm launched its own branded range stamped "Savonneries Bruxelloises", having previously produced soaps under other names and for other labels. The building itself predates the soap works: constructed in 1910 and now listed on the Brussels heritage inventory of protected buildings [7].

A significant step came in 2016, when the company was named a supplier to the Belgian Court, described by Wikipedia as the only new royal warrant holder appointed that year [7]. The brand frames the distinction as earned through consistent quality rather than bought, and several of its products carry a "savon du Roi" ("King's soap") association in its own materials.

The business trades under the entity BeaBa SPRL [1]. In 2019 the factory was acquired by two entrepreneurs, Maxime de Villenfagne and Maxime Pecsteen, who according to the Brussels regional business agency hub.brussels had met in 2007 during an Erasmus exchange in China and brought a background in finance and entrepreneurship to the purchase [8]. The company describes its current ownership simply as being "in the hands of two friends who share a passion for the art of soap-making."

The company positions itself around quality and tradition, summarised in its tagline "Quality & Tradition" [2]. Its stated objective, in its own words, has always been "to make, in a traditional fashion, soaps of extreme finesse with the best raw materials," using what it calls the best possible ingredients and the subtlest perfumes. It presents its process as deliberately slow rather than automated for speed, respecting maturation times, and markets itself at the premium end with the line "exceptional handmade soaps."

The core range is solid soap, sold in a variety of box sizes and rope-soap formats, alongside solid shampoos, glycerine soaps and accessories [1]. Fragrances offered include lavender, calendula, black roses, ginger and lime, and Porto red wine, among others. On the manufacturing side, the factory advertises the ability to produce soap in more than 250 shapes with customisation for clients, reflecting a business-to-business side that runs in parallel with its own retail brand.

Since the 2019 change of ownership, the company has emphasised environmental measures. According to hub.brussels, these include zero-waste production, cooling its machinery with rainwater, installing solar panels, and circular-economy partnerships with local businesses — reusing spent grains from the Brussels Beer Project and recycling soap offcuts with the Jam Hotel [8]. The agency also reported that the firm pursued organic certification during a closure early in the COVID-19 period, though no formal certification is documented in the available sources.

Beyond the Belgian royal warrant, the company has drawn regional press attention. The Brussels business agency hub.brussels profiled the 2019 takeover and the factory's sustainability initiatives, describing the site as "the capital's oldest soap factory" [8]. The brand's news archive also references earlier editorial coverage, including a 2017 feature in The Brussels Magazine.

Savonneries Bruxelloises is active. Its online storefront runs on Shopify and continues to publish fresh content, with blog posts dated as recently as June 2026 [5], including an article on the company's own history. It operates a physical shop at the Galeries Royales Saint-Hubert in central Brussels, and according to its factory operation exports roughly 75% of production, reaching around 20 countries [8]. The company approached its centenary in 2026, marketing close to a hundred years of soap-making from the same Brussels site.