ARGANI

Sidr, Rassoul and Tabrima

Three Moroccan powders that become something else when they meet water.

From the Amazigh to your skin

The material

Dry, and waiting.

These three arrive as powder, and none is finished. You decide how much water, which water, and how long it rests before it goes on. That makes them more demanding than anything in a bottle, and Moroccan households have kept them all the same, while far more convenient things came and went.

Two of them cleanse without any soap at all: sidr through its saponins, the plant world's own soap, and rassoul through the clay itself. The third is not a cleanser. It is colour.

Also known as ghassoul

Rassoul

The clay that washes.

Rassoul takes its name from the Arabic for washing, and the name is literal. A stevensite clay, it draws oil into itself as it is rinsed away, which is why it can stand in for shampoo. It is mined in only one region on earth, Fès-Meknès, on the edge of the Middle Atlas, and it holds well over its own weight in water, so a little makes a generous paste.

A face or body mask
A hair wash, in place of shampoo
Mixed with rose water
Applied in the hammam with a kherqa

Origin: Fès-Meknès
Sourced: Casablanca-Settat

Ziziphus, the jujube leaf

Sidr

The leaf that washes.

Jujube leaves, dried and ground fine. Sidr carries saponins, and it has cleansed hair and skin across North Africa, the Arabian Peninsula and Persia for centuries. It is gentle enough to be the traditional first wash after henna, leaving the colour in place.

A hair wash, mixed to a paste
A face mask
Mixed with rose water

Origin: Marrakech-Safi

A Fès preparation

Tabrima

Every maker blends it differently.

Tabrima is a traditional preparation of many botanicals, associated with Fès, and it has no single formula: each maker keeps their own. In Morocco it is the bride's powder, worn on the face and body in the days before a wedding. Ours is made by hand, and the finest we have found: a blend of nila, Aker El Fassi, sidr, dried flowers and herbs that brightens, softens and tones the skin. Mix it with black soap and a little rose water into a paste, spread it over the face and body, leave it ten to fifteen minutes, and rinse with warm water. It is at its best straight after the Black Soap.

Face and body mask
After the Black Soap

Nila, Aker El Fassi, sidr, dried flowers and herbs.

Origin: Fès-Meknès

The ARGANI standard

Three powders. One ritual of the earth.

Rassoul, the mineral clay of Fès-Meknès, cleanses and softens. Sidr, the ground leaf of the jujube tree, washes skin and hair with a gentle lather. Tabrima, the bride's powder of Fès, leaves the skin glowing. Each comes alive with a little rose water.

In their words

What the house hears back

No review is published yet for this piece. If you have used it, yours would be the first.

Rose water poured from a plain glass bottle into a brass bowl of rose petals

The pairing

Mix them with rose water.

Plain water will do. Rose water, in its place, leaves the skin feeling softer once the paste is rinsed away, and turns a practical step into a small pleasure.

ARGANI Rose Water

Kept at its finest

Dry, and sealed.

All three draw moisture from the air and will clump if allowed. Keep them sealed and away from the bathroom, take them out with a dry spoon, and mix only what you mean to use.

For external use only. Avoid the eye area. Patch test before the first full use. Keep out of reach of children.