A Patriotic Substitute Soap

Soap substitute, largely containing clay and a small amount of carboxylic acid, was never popular with the public. It also effused sludge that clogged the drainpipes. Nevertheless, soap merchants and fabricators tried to survive during the First World War. The firm Gustav Boehm in Offenbach appealed to their customer’s patriotism in their commercial by calling their product “Feldgrau”, field grey. “To don field grey” was a way of saying that you joined the army and soldiers were sometimes referred to as “the field greys”. It also, appropriately, described the soap’s colour.

The bar of soap was a gift in 1917 to Wilhelmina von Hallwyl from engineer Ernst Hellström who had studied in Darmstadt.