Nabulsi soap
type of castile soap in Palestine
Nabulsi soap (Arabic: صابون نابلسي, romanized: ṣābūn Nābulsi) is an olive oil-based hard soap from the Palestinian city of Nablus. Its chief ingredients are virgin olive oil, water, and an alkaline sodium compound, such as sodium hydroxide. The finished product is coloured ivory, and has almost no scent. Traditionally made by women for household use, it had become a significant industry for Nablus by the 14th century. In 1907, the city's 30 soap factories were supplying half of all soap in Palestine. The industry had begun declining by the mid-20th century due to the destruction inflicted on the Old City of Nablus by the 1927 Jericho earthquake and later due to the 1967 Arab–Israeli War and consequential Israeli occupation of the West Bank. As of December 2022, there are at least five soap factories operating in the City of Nablus.
History
Nabulsi soap was traditionally made by women for household use, even before the appearance of small soap-making factories in the 10th century. Trade with Bedouins was indispensable for soap-making, both in Nablus and Hebron, since they alone could furnish the alkaline soda (qilw) required by the process. By the 14th century a significant soap-making industry had developed in Nablus and the soap, reputedly prized by Queen Elizabeth I of England, was exported throughout the Middle East and Europe.
“Nabulsi soap” enters the record as type of castile soap in Palestine. Crown Archives preserves that source wording while asking what Nabulsi, soap and type can confirm, complicate or overturn.
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Named sources, stable identifiers and responsible institutions provide the strongest route from overview to verifiable evidence. The source revision retrieved here is dated Sep 14, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q4120484. None of the 0 selected statements returned an explicit reference. The first chronological checks are 1907, 1927, 1967 and 2022.
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This entry incorporates text from “Nabulsi soap” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.