The Route Mandarine story
My name is Tiphaine Chalaron, and I am the founder of Route Mandarine.
My team and I are celebrating a significant milestone in the life of our workshop: 15 years of our company! To mark this occasion, I felt the need to return to the origins of this wonderful project and tell you its major chapters through magnificent illustrations.
Chapter 1: Discovering a passion
I am depicted in this illustration with my three children: Pierre-Antoine, Aziliz, and Benoît. We are fortunate to live in the heart of nature, in Porspoder, Brittany.
Before becoming a mother, I was a midwifery student at the Faculty of Medicine in Brest. I used shower gels like "Tahiti Douche" or "Ushuaïa Nature": pretty colored bottles and exotic, evocative scents. Remember: about twenty years ago, we bought our cosmetics with our eyes closed; we didn't question their composition. But when my children were born, I instinctively didn't want to use industrial products on their delicate skin.
It was 2006, and I discovered a homemade soap recipe in a book. I had no idea how soap was made. This piqued my interest, and I sought to learn more about this cold process saponification technique. I went to Béarn to attend a manufacturing workshop with Léanne Chevalier, the very first cold-process soap maker established in France. Léanne is of Canadian origin, and in her country, homemade soap has remained common.
During that weekend, I "put my little finger in the pot," and the passion never left me. Léanne's enthusiasm and the quality of the product convinced me that this type of soap would be perfect for my family. This discovery met several of my expectations: healthy and natural toiletries, better for the skin but also for nature.
Back in Brittany, inspired by Léanne's recipes, I enjoyed creating and testing my own compositions. At that time, finding organic vegetable oils was a challenge: organic stores were unreceptive, and pharmacists were mocking. All of this only made me more eager to continue my research.
The following Christmas, the whole family, of course, received their soap. I didn't imagine at the time that they would be so enthusiastic. I then realized that cold-process soap, softer and more natural, met a real need. These were my first steps towards Route Mandarine...
