Chamomile is the most oversold plant in this category, which is a shame, because what it genuinely offers is quite pleasant and completely sufficient.
Chamomile soap is a mild, lightly fragranced bar with chamomile flowers or extract in it, suited to skin that doesn't want texture or a strong scent. The chamomile contributes a soft honeyed, apple-like aroma and the look of the flowers in the bar. A calming scent is a cue you give yourself, not something that acts on your body.
What does chamomile do in a bar of soap?
Three things you can verify by holding one. It scents the bar — German chamomile smells herbaceous and slightly bitter, Roman chamomile sweeter and more apple-like, and both are subtle in soap compared with, say, lavender. It colours it faintly. What matters more than how a bar looks is what's in it, and the full list is on the product page.
Beyond that, the general limits of what a plant does in a bar of soap apply here as much as anywhere, and I set them out in a longer piece about botanicals rather than repeating the whole argument. Short version: contact time is under a minute, and that constrains everything.
Does a chamomile scent actually make you sleepy?
No. And I'd rather lose the sale than say otherwise, because that is the sentence this whole category tells and it isn't true.
What is true is smaller and still worth something: a scent you only meet at one point in the day becomes a marker for that point in the day. Wash with the same bar at ten at night for three weeks and the smell starts to mean the day is over — the same way a particular song does, or the sound of shutters coming down. The bar isn't acting on you. You are using it to tell yourself something, which is a legitimate and rather old technology.
Our own line about this is that we don't treat symptoms, we accompany processes. That is not a hedge. It is the actual scope of what a bar of soap does at bedtime.
Is chamomile soap safe for babies?
I don't make baby products and I wouldn't hand this bar to a newborn. It is a fragranced adult cosmetic, and infant skin is a different proposition — thinner, more permeable, and the standard advice for the first months is water and very little else.
For an older child, that is a question for whoever knows the child's skin, and a patch test on an inner arm before anything else. The general rule I would give any parent: the shorter the ingredient list and the fainter the scent, the safer the bet.
Who should choose a different bar?
Two groups, clearly.
- Anyone sensitive to the daisy family. Chamomile is an Asteraceae, along with ragweed, marigold and calendula. If those cause you trouble, this is not the bar to experiment with, and neither is the calendula one.
- Anyone who wants texture. There is no loofah in this bar. If what you're after is exfoliation in the same movement, you want a bar with a slice of gourd in it instead.
Everyone else: this is the bar to reach for if you want one uncomplicated thing for face and body, a scent that stays in the background, and no grit. It's my big bar: 160 g (5.64 oz), where the rest of my bars weigh 120 g.
Which chamomile product is which?
The bar on its own is the Chamomile Soap, and it sits in Gentle Everyday with the rest of the low-drama end of the catalogue. The Chamomile Calming Ritual Set puts it with the other pieces that go around it, including the water acidifier, which exists for a reason that has nothing to do with chamomile and everything to do with what comes out of your tap. There's also a round chamomile bar, the Chamomile & Coconut Soothing Soap. It's a different soap, made for the Soothing set, and its partner is the Chamomile & Coconut Soothing Cream (100 g), made with sweet almond oil, shea butter, aloe and chamomile extract. Put the two together and you have the Soothing Mini Set.
Cosmetic products. Not intended to diagnose, treat, cure or prevent any disease.