茶山房 

We stumbled upon a soap store-茶山房 (Tea Soap) in the street of 淡水老街 (Tamsui Old Street). “This soap shop is founded by a Grandpa who started selling soap at the Rare Bus Station of Taipei from his young age. He began learning the craft of soap-maker not long afterwards, but was soon afflicted with “Fugui Shou” (hand eczema) as his skin came in frequent contact in strong alkaline soap mixtures. Grandpa visited many doctors but none of them were able to rid him of the disease. Undaunted, Grandpa became determined to create a neutral soap that would not harm the hands of the users. After years of hard work, Grandpa managed to create Taiwan’s first neutral float soap in 1963.” 

There we found a collection of vintage soaps/bath product packaging from the 50s’ to 60s’ on display. We found it quite remarkable and detailed, spending as much time learning the evolution of these products in Taiwan lifestyle as we did shopping for the healing soaps to bring home!