Small business aims to preserve Palestinian cultural traditions with soap making kits

Editor’s note: A previous version of the story incorrectly referred to Culture Crate as a nonprofit organization. Culture Crate is a for-profit social venture.

Woman-owned small business Culture Crate is working on a campaign to encourage education on Palestinian cultural traditions. The campaign is accessible through Kickstarter, where people can purchase Nabulsi saboon (soap) making kits.

“One fear with any cultural heritage practice is if you lose the practice, could we then lose the knowledge about it,” said Culture Crate CEO Nadine Zaza.

Saboon making did not just contribute a product to the world, but also advancements in chemistry and language. Zaza explained that Culture Crate’s mission is to preserve these cultural practices, and that her experience as a design educator helped her realize that the “most influential, most important ways for students, and for, really, people and anyone to really engage intentionally with culture and with knowledge is to do it yourself.”

In this way, the saboon making kit encourages preservation of Palestinian cultural traditions through an educational and interactive process.

Saboon making is a cultural practice that has existed in Nablus, Palestine for centuries. In 2024, it was inscribed in the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) Representative List of Intangible Cultural Heritage of Humanity. This list recognizes non-physical heritage practices around the world as a way to highlight global culturally diverse creativity.

The saboon making kits include everything needed for the process, including silicone molds, gloves, safety goggles, sodium hydroxide and Palestinian olive oil, as well as educational pamphlets illustrating the history of saboon making and booklets explaining the importance of cultural preservation.

Palestinian soap making kits is Culture Crate’s first campaign, but they hope to expand by focusing future campaigns on other heritage practices from other parts of the Arab world.