Beauty Bible Weekend Steal: Roger & Gallet Jean-Marie Farina soap

This is the time of year for a classic eau de Cologne scent – and they don't come more classic than Roger & Gallet's Jean-Marie Farina Cologne, which – in soap form – is our affordable 'pick', this week. It's fresh, it's airy, it's citrusy – and it's very, very summery.

Now, we file new soap under 'small pleasures'. And this is a cracker. But first, we thought we'd share a little bit of history behind the name, because it's just so fascinating. Its real roots go all the way back to 1693, and the creation of 'Acqua Mirabilis', or 'miracle water', a distillation of medicinal plants, later patented by the Cologne Faculty of Medicine in 1727. (Stay with us, here!)

It was in 1806 that Jean-Marie Farina, heir to the precious 'apothecary formula' for Acqua Mirabilis – and official supplier of fragrances to Napoleon I – created his own Eau de Cologne. Later, Jean-Marie Farina's Rue du Faubourg Saint Honoré house was inherited by two sisters, whose uncle had bought this historic perfume name. Their husbands? Armand Roger & Charles Gallet. And that fabled name (or pair of names), Roger & Gallet, continues to offer pretty much this same formula of Cologne, today – and it smells completely contemporary.

We love it as a splash, but we also really adore it in soap form. As with all soaps we buy, you'll find it in our lingerie and woollen drawers, keeping our undies and pullovers smelling delicious till we put them on!

£6.50 for 100g* – buy here

* The single bars come in well under our ‘steal’ threshold – but the boxes of soap, at around £15, are also DIVINE. The scent lasts in the boxes literally for decades. (Not even joking.)

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