Don’t you just love the smell of freshly brewed soaps in the morning? If you’re walking around the hub of Sliema and come across a delightful array of lush aromas, you’ve probably stumbled upon the Soap Café.
This charming boutique shop is the humble home to some fine artisan beauty products. You will find over 50 different handmade soaps available for all skin types and ailments. Explore their variety ethically made lotions, balms and scrubs, all created by various artists and artisans for men, women and babies. Nobody is excluded at the Soap Café!
Planet over Produce
The Soap Café’s mission and ethos is to use and produce goods that benefit all humans, animals and the planet they walk upon. The use of toxic free and ethically sourced products reduces the harmful impact on the planet and safe guards our own individual health also. Most of the products found in this store are vegan, however a handful of products do contain ethically sourced honey, beeswax and/ or goat’s milk. These products still ensure that all life forms are being respected in this production process.
The Soap Café also has a refill station. Once you buy a product from the Soap Café, you can return to refill your freshly crafted items made with local ingredients from their store upon bringing your own container. If you want to spice things up a little you can also ask one of their beauty chefs to create a customised product to your liking on the spot!
The Soap Café’s Creation
Store owner Charlene, started experimenting with her own personal cosmetic care back in 1999 due to various skin conditions. She told The Third Eye:
I was fed up of being a guinea pig to orthodox methods. I got in beauty therapy followed by herbalism, aromatherapy, photography, and product design. Almost a decade later, in 2008, Soap Café was officially created from my parent’s kitchen, selling a few soap bars during events.
I opened my first shop in 2009. The business grew slowly yet steadily from there. It was quite unique for Malta at the time, and most of my energy went into educating the public about sustainable and cruelty free products ;- words like ‘vegan’ and ‘organic’ were not as popularized as today especially in the local scene of cosmetic brands. For quite a few years, Soap Café was ironically more popular in countries such as Japan and Korea rather than in our own country!
New to the Menu
I create each product with loads of TLC and I’m very proud of each creation because they all have their unique qualities.
Since the Soap Café prides itself in using locally grown and natural ingredients, they love working with seasonal produce. What better way to ravish in the autumn season than with a luxurious pumpkin and chair tea soap bar? You should also keep your eye out for a fresh Christmas range which launches in mid-November.
Regardless of the season, the Soap Café continuously strives to create high quality products. Rather than focusing on having just a large repertoire of goods, they focus on making sure that our packaging, ingredients, and methods fit the ethos of reducing the impact of consumerism whilst remaining profitable.
The Future of Soap Café
We have been recognized in various countries, we have been listed on magazines in various languages, and we have customers from all over the world. Yet the locals still carry the stigma that locally made products are not as good as foreign brands. Thankfully with the rise of various talented local artist and artisans things are changing rapidly.
Our aim is that in the next decade, Soap Café will be the cosmetic brand synonymous with our beloved Maltes Islands.
You can also order these delights through the Soap Café’s website here.