Leinau Beer Shampoo Soap

If possible, good soap should consist primarily if not entirely of vegetable oils. It’s important that not all the oil be turned into soap so that the soap retains a small amount of moisturising oil. That allows the soap to clean and moisturise the skin against dryness. The monks in the ecumenical Cistercian monastery of St. Severin produce soap in the especially gentle warm stir process. Added Ingredients give each soap a special touch which recommends them for certain applications. The soaps are well ripened and very rich.

The abbey of St. Severin relocated in the spring of 2010, and the three religious have been living since then in the former German army radar school on the sunny (and sometimes cloudy) highland overlooking Kaufbeuren in the Bavarian Alps. They had vacated their previous quarters in Leinau when the property changed hands. The abbey monks belong to the ecumenical Port Royal Cistercian order. In the 17th century, the name stood for a pious movement related to Jansenism. Buffeted between fundamental ideas and a special conception of deeds on the one hand and the confessions on the other this spiritual bark never went under and was reestablished as a monastery in 1946. Perhaps it’s symbolic that the bark has found a new haven in a place under a radar installation where navigation training (with the aid of radar) took place. The monks earn their keep by giving spiritual instructions and by producing soap and other personal care products. This is a kind of work that is especially appropriate for monastic seclusion because it does without large-scale machinery and equipment while it requires concentration and a love of detail.