This vintage brand soap smells good! An inexpensive and practical souvenir to take home--and available in les grands surfaces, French supermarkets that sell everything from textiles to tomatoes and televisions.
Passer le savon: literally to pass the soap; to moralize or to put someone in his place, or to reprimand
This expression dates to the 17th century when French women, who when washing clothes at the community wash-shed would exchange juicy gossip at the same time as they shared a bar of soap.
Vocabulary
un pain de savon: a bar of soap
un lavoir: a wash-shed or tub
un potin: an item of gossip
passer un savon: to give a dressing down
©2013 P.B. Lecron
