New Orleans Bed and Breakfast Soap

NOMA in NOLA

No one is going to say that any of the original artwork hanging in La Belle Esplanade bed and breakfast is worth hanging in the New Orleans Museum of Art at the end of Esplanade Avenue.  It's not that the artwork isn't any good.  Some of it is very good.  Most of it, however, will probably be appreciated more once the artist is dead.  Such is the lot of most painters.  

A painting in Les Fleurs Suite

Delayed appreciation is not a problem, though, for those lucky few who practice the olfactory arts.  If you know the difference between toilet water and Chanel No. 5, you know the difference between run-of-the-mill hotel soap and handcrafted artisanal soap.

I mentioned the other day, in my usual rambling and roundabout way, that I happen to know a soap maker from New London, Connecticut.  She agreed to supply us with her product.  The first shipment arrived the other day.  Nothing bad has ever come out of Connecticut.  Just ask your humble narrator's wife.  She is usually right about these things.

If you're like me, you like to spend your time online reading reviews of artisanal soaps.  I found two that confirmed that I had made the right partnership.  One reviewer found Olive and Oud soaps an ode to joy.   Another reviewer felt like she had emerged from a bonfire in the snow.  

The soaps arrived from Connecticut, and we put a cube of each in La France, La Pelican, and the Clio Suites.  I'm not going to provide pictures of these eye candy soaps.  It's not that I forgot my camera, and it's not they aren't worth admiring with one's eyes.  It's just that they are best enjoyed firsthand, through one's nose and one's skin.  Neither words nor pictures can do them justice.  They deserve to be experienced in the flesh.

We were giving Leda and Richard a tour of the Clio Suite when they checked in this evening.  Leda immediately noticed the cube of Olive and Oud soap set like a jewel in the dish by the sink.  "This smells like heaven," she said and she held it up for Richard to get a whiff.

"It smells like New Orleans, just like I expected," he said.

Let's say you can't wait to stay at La Belle Esplanade bed and breakfast to try our new soaps.  Maybe you stayed with us in the past and you want to be reminded of what it was like to enjoy a few days on Esplanade Avenue in New Orleans.  Maybe you just want to buy some Olive and Oud soap for yourself, to get an idea of what it is like to wile away a few carefree hours and forget your worries in a beautiful setting.  Maybe you just want to dance and live life like nobody is watching.  You can buy Olive and Oud soap online.

New London is Connecticut's Whaling City.  After you visit New Orleans, I suggest you plan a vacation in the southeastern corner of the Nutmeg State.  The two cities have much in common: deepwater ports, good people, good music, good bars, and good soap.  

I know a painter from New London.  He gave me a picture he had painted with your humble narrator in mind.

Baelenius Rex!

Not all the art found in our New Orleans bed and breakfast inn is museum-quality, but all of it worth enjoying, like the house itself and the city we call home.

A votre sante.