Tamanohada’s Fish Soaps

Tamanohada figures amongst the oldest Japanese soap makers. The company was founded in Tokyo in 1892, but it was only in 2003 that it launched a range of products under its name and began developing new designs to promote a historic skill.

The company uses quality ingredients and delicate scents which are also, may we say, trendy. Tamanohada’s ‘welcome soaps’ are made in sculpted wooden moulds which are the same shape as the metal moulds used to cook taiyaki (which literally translates as ‘grilled sea bream’), Japanese pastries filled with red bean paste. Sea bream is traditionally associated with Ebisu, the god of merchants (and himself the symbol of the beer brand Yebisu), and symbolises prosperity.

Perhaps that’s no coincidence? Now widely distributed, and well beyond Japanese waters too, these imperturbable fish are spawning, and all the way into the bathrooms of gourmet soap lovers.