Zhenobya mardine soap

Mardin is the Aramaic word for fortress, which is exactly what the city once was: a strategic post located high above the Mesopotamian plain. Today, the city near the Syrian border belongs to southeastern Turkey. In the beginning, it was mainly Assyrians who lived in Mardin, but Mongols, Kurds and Turks soon joined them and shaped the cityscape and traditions, which still include soap boiling today. And since, moreover, the area has always been famous for its pistachio trees, it is not surprising that the intensely fragrant pistachio oil was also used for soap.
The oil for Mardin soap comes from a wild pistachio (Pistacia terebinthus) and is rich in unsaturated essential fatty acids as well as lecithin, iron, magnesium and vitamin E. With olive oil of first pressing, it is gently simmered for three days at low temperature (110 ° C). Unlike Aleppo soaps, Mardin soap retains its fresh green color, even after drying and maturing (orange Mardin soaps are simply enriched with natural beta-carotene, which gives them the color).

The exceedingly mild soap is also suitable for dry and sensitive skin and has always been used for hair, as it does not stress the hair and scalp.

Zhenobya is one of the traditional soap boiling factories in Aleppo and one of the very few there that can currently boil soaps at all. In addition to the famous Aleppo soaps, they also make natural soaps whose recipes originally come from cities in the Middle East, where the soap boiling has as long a tradition as in Aleppo: Nablus in the West Bank, Mardin in southeastern Turkey and ancient Antioch, now Antakya in southwestern Turkey.