I was looking for hand soap online. After typing “soap Thailand” into Google, hundreds of results appeared. Soap Opera was the one stood out and immediately led me to its site. Coming from brands, I am often intrigued by the brand name that the founder had decided upon. Right away I thought to myself, “That’s a very clever and dramatic brand name, I love it!” Next, I was curious to find out whether the brand actually offered something as showy, dramatic as its namesake, or it was purely playing with words.
Soaps that You Can Eat
I ordered a bunch of toiletries that I needed for my home and above all, the personal retreat of my bathroom. I am always looking for shampoo bars, as I love the idea of not using plastic containers. However, it is a quest to find shampoo bar that keeps hair smooth and shiny while not having the pungent, overwhelming smell that LUSH shampoo soaps do. Hence, I was even more excited about ordering from Soap Opera when I found out that there were both shampoos and conditioner bars available at their online shop.
Besides hair care products, I also placed orders for the brand’s best-selling soap bars, facial creams, facial serums, hair serums, hydrosol sprays, and more. Fresh ingredients like lavender, fresh lemongrass, mint, chrysanthemum, sweet vanilla, moringa, chocolate, pumpkin, avocado, spicy cinnamon, garden rose, green tea, bitter orange, basil, cucumber, ylang-ylang, bergamot, kafir lime, and banana sound so enticing that I could imagine the aromas that were going to fill up my sanctuary and felt like I would be immersed in my very own garden. Not to mention, the soap bars look like pieces of art! The colours resemble some abstract paintings and there’s always something— like a piece of bitter orange— that reminds you that all Soap Opera soaps are made of edible ingredients.
Don’t Throw It Away, Reuse it!
Indeed, when I finally spoke to the brand, I was truly impressed how it all began. The brand’s Founder and Owner, Maria Kalita, who is originally from Ukraine, studied eastern medicine and natural cosmetic making in Poland. Interestingly, her soaps originated as food oil waste she collected from street vendors in Bangkok. After purifying it and and mixing it with other ingredients, she was able to up-cycle it into her soaps. According to her, “the saponification process destroys the pollution in the waste oil. Before that, the oil is filtered through cotton and boiled for five hours with water.”
I love this origin story. I also love the fact that even after all these years, now that the brand is doing so well, they continue to utilise using collected food oil. “We are still collecting waste oil from restaurants. After that, we take the oil form a group of trained women who are from Khrongkan Toei Slums in Bangkok and will recycle the oil into soap. Each of these ladies produces 100kg of soap every month. We also donate some of our products to communities in need. Hence Soap Opera is a 3-level project: we recycle, provide occupational training to minorities, and donate our sanitary products to communities in need.”
Together with all the “shows” going on with its beautiful products, I agree that Soap Opera is a very fitting name for the brand.
Change Begins at Home— Natural Beauty Care and Soap Workshops
Soap Opera is not only dramatic in its story and products, but it also interacts with its audience by holding various workshops that tell everyone its trade secrets, including how to make their soaps, aroma candles, bath salts and perfumes! Maria the Founder of the brand believes Change Begins at Home. These workshops are ones of the brand’s mission and vision to share its knowledge of how you can use household tools and your kitchen to create the all-natural beauty care and soaps customers can find in any Soap Opera stores. You can find out more about the numerous workshops and events held by Soap Opera nearly on a daily basis at www.soapoperaevents.com.
Enjoy the Show— Starting from 100 THB
From as low as 100THB, you can get your hands on the artistically-crafted pieces of soap from Soap Opera Bangkok. The brand produces a wide range of offerings, including seasonal and festival limited editions for holidays such as Halloween and Christmas. They make sensual and affordable gifts that allow you to give them away generously.
Even their most expensive item costs merely 1,207 THB, which is a beauty box that you can pick and pack for anyone you would like to give a gift to. They also make touching and memorable souvenirs from Thailand. At time of writing, Thai baht was trading at 36.27 to 1 USD.
You can follow Soap Opera Bangkok on their Instagram @bangkok.soap.opera. They also have their own Youtube Channel @BangkokSoapOpera.
The brand recently opened a new store @terminal21asok (Terminal 21 Bangkok, 3/F), search for Level 3 (the Istanbul floor) and check out all the amazing products created by Soap Opera Bangkok!
