SUHÊR EL-ÎDLIBÎ

Idlib - Olive oil soaps have been produced by factories for years but they used to be produced in houses before. Thousands of women living in Idlib city of Syria have kept producing olive oil soaps in their house to earn a livelihood and to use them for their personal hygiene.

Olive oil soaps are both a source of income and cultural ritual for women

Suheyla El-Tebal is now 60 years old and she has produced olive oil soaps as far as she remembers. She says producing olive oil soaps is a cultural ritual. Even if the ongoing civil war in Syria has changed many things in their life, the women have kept producing olive oil soaps in their houses. “We want to protect our culture. We earn a livelihood by olive oil soaps. We use them to clean our house and for our personal hygiene.”

Suheyla El-Tebal told us the stages of producing olive oil soaps

“We pour water into a cooking pot, and then we slowly add caustic in it. We boil olive oil in another pot at around 40 degrees. We mix them together and keep stirring them for about 10 minutes every five minutes. We put the mixture under a blanket and keep it for a day. We take it out from under the blanket, pour it into molds, and wait for three days. After three days, we put it on a tray to dry it; it takes three months. It sounds like it takes very long but actually, it passes very fast for us. Then we package them.”