For fragrance and texture, today’s sensual indulgence—unwrapping a new bar of noni soap. Its essence is that of the island it comes from, Hawai’i, whose blossom-scented air welcomes you like a languid bath, or an embrace.
The soap is made of coconut, palm, olive, kukui, and macadamia nut oils, grapefruit seed extract. It’s then scented with white ginger, gardenia, plumeria. It’s good for the complexion, for healing rashes or sunburn, besides transporting you back to the Kona Coast almost in time for morning coffee.
Noni, a Hawaiian evergreen tree also known as Indian Mulberry, has a fruit with a rotten smell and an unassuming bumpy yellow globular look, that yet has in it an array of healthgiving properties. It’s one of the medicinal plants the ancient Polynesians brought to Hawai’i on one of their canoe voyages (cannily reading the stars, the currents). Native Hawaiians have used it to treat diabetes, heart problems, high blood pressure. Its roots, leaves, flowers, fruit, and bark are all used as herbal remedies, and the roots used to dye tapa cloth yellow, red, or purple.
In my quest for a suitable photo I am transfixed by the soaps here at The Soap Kitchen—scrumptious!
image: Morinda citrifolia. El noni, aal, fruta del diablo o mora de la India (Morinda citrifolia) es una planta arbórea o arbustiva de la familia de las rubiáceas; originaria del sudeste asiático, ha sido introducida a la India y la Polinesia. Se emplea extensamente como medicinal. Wilfredo Rodríguez
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