Julia Popova, the Russian artist who makes soap good enough…to eat!
3 min read
If you find real-looking, ready-to-eat food resting in a bathroom, don’t eat it!
Probably because it’s a soap in the form of delicious food.
Surprised?
Actually this is the handiwork of Julia Popova, and making realistic food soap is her passion.
Julia is a talented soap maker based in Saint Petersburg, Russia, who creates amazingly detailed bars of soap that look like delectable desserts, liquor bottles or juicy fruits.
Nine years ago, when she started making her beautiful soap bars, she only made them as gifts for family and friends, but she received such positive feedback that she actually started showing them off on social media.
Soon orders started coming in and the OmNon Soap brand was born.
In the beginning, she would buy regular soap bars, melt them, and them mold them into the desired shapes, but as she became more involved in the artistic process, she started buying the base ingredients and then making her own soap.
However, calling it “soap” doesn’t do it justice, as every one of her creations is more like a real piece of art.
And it’s not only food soaps that she creates, but drinks soaps too. So, you’ve soaps in the form of fruits, fish, snacks, doughnuts, chocolates, cookies, and more. Then there are miniature bottles of the best of liquor that are actually all made of soap, including Jack Daniels whiskey, Grant’s whiskey, Jameson whiskey, Absolut Vodka, and, of course, many top Russian liquor brands.
Looking at some of her hand-crafted bars of soap, it’s easy to see why she has to keep her eyes on visitors at exhibitions because sometimes they’ll try to take a bite out of the very realistic creations.
And who can blame them, if they look so tasty?
Interestingly, Julia’s soaps not only look amazing, but they smell amazing as well.
Instead of the usual soap fragrances like lavender, jasmine or other floral scents, she prefers dessert flavors like vanilla, lemon and strawberry, which only makes her creations more realistic.
And there’s a logic to her creations.
According to her, women prefer soap that looks like a cake, while men prefer them more in the form of liquor bottles, fish and snacks. However, her experiment to add food flavorings to her creations came a cropper.
She tried, for example, adding cheese flavor to her cheese-looking soap, but the result was terrible!
Either way only a few people use Julia Popova’s creations to clean their hands, as most of them either collect them or use them as decorations.
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