Add your promotional text...

The Formulary 55 Honeycomb Neroli Gift Set: When Soap Becomes an Occasion

A bar of soap costs $8. A handcrafted porcelain plate costs $25. Together in a botanical gift box, they cost $31. The maths barely makes sense until you realise the plate isn't packaging. It's the point.

Your sink area probably has a soap dispenser. Maybe a hand towel on a ring. Perhaps a succulent that's slowly dying because you forget to water it. Functional. Fine. Exactly like everyone else's.

The Formulary 55 Petite Honeycomb & Neroli Gift Set doesn't fix your sink situation. It elevates it. Not in an Instagram-influencer-with-twenty-matching-bottles way. In a "there's a butterfly-etched porcelain plate next to your tap and it's holding soap that smells like honey and orange blossoms" way. Small shift. Noticeable difference.

At $31, this is the definition of accessible luxury. You're essentially paying $25 for the plate and getting a 6oz bar of shea butter soap thrown in for $6. The set comes in Formulary 55's signature botanical gift box, which means it's ready to give or acceptable to keep for yourself without feeling guilty.

What You're Actually Getting

One 6oz Honeycomb & Neroli shea butter soap bar, wrapped in botanical paper with vintage illustrations.

One SKT Ceramics Swallowtail Butterfly Everything Plate, handcrafted in Cincinnati from high-fire porcelain. The butterfly is screen-printed, detailed with hand-painted glaze and wax, then dipped in icy white glaze. It measures roughly 4 inches across.

The plate is called an "Everything Plate" because it refuses to be limited. Soap dish, yes. But also: ring holder, tea bag rest, the place where your watch goes at night, the dish that catches earrings when you're washing your face. The glaze is smooth enough that nothing sticks. The size is right for one bar of soap without looking sparse.

The box itself is sturdy enough to repurpose. Botanical illustrations on thick cardboard, no plastic, just paper and the items themselves. If you're giving this as a gift, you don't need to wrap it.

The Scent That Takes a Minute

Honeycomb & Neroli doesn't announce itself immediately. It needs 30 seconds on your skin before you understand it.

The neroli (bitter orange blossom) arrives first. Sharp, clean, citrus that feels awake rather than sleepy. Then honey warms everything without tipping into sweetness. There's a floral middle that doesn't smell like a florist's shop, and something almost amber-like underneath that gives it weight.

It's the kind of scent you smell on someone walking past and think "what is that?" rather than immediately recognising lavender or rose. Complex without being demanding. Fresh without being generic. Warm without being heavy.

When you wash your hands, the scent stays for about 20 minutes before fading. Not long enough to compete with perfume, long enough to notice. In the bathroom, it lingers subtly. Not the way synthetic air fresheners sit in your nose, more like there's honey and citrus somewhere nearby and your brain registers it as pleasant.

Some people smell it and immediately love it. Others need a few uses to decide. If you're someone who prefers straightforward scents (pure lavender, eucalyptus, unscented), this might feel like it's trying too hard. If you like Diptyque candles or Aesop products, you'll recognise this as the same school of thought.

The Ritual It Creates

Week two of having this set on my sink, I realised I was choosing to use the bar soap instead of the pump dispenser I'd had there for months. Not because the soap cleans better (it's soap, it cleans). Because using something that sits on a handcrafted plate changes the action from automatic to intentional.

The plate makes the soap visible. You notice it. Which means you notice washing your hands. Which sounds ridiculous until you realise how much of your day happens on autopilot. The butterfly catches light differently depending on time of day. The glaze has depth. You put the soap back on the plate and it looks like it belongs there.

This is what $31 buys you: a moment of noticing. The soap would work just as well on a standard ceramic dish from Ikea. But the Ikea dish wouldn't make you pause. The SKT plate does.

The Gifting Angle

This set solves the "I need to bring something but don't want to overthink it" problem.

It's substantial enough that it doesn't feel like an afterthought. It's not so expensive that the recipient feels awkward. The plate extends the life of the gift beyond the consumables. When the soap is gone, the butterfly plate stays. It holds rings or paperclips or sits on a desk looking purposeful.

Best situations:

Hostess gift when you're invited for dinner
Thank you for a colleague who helped with a project
"Thinking of you" for someone going through something difficult
Housewarming for someone whose taste you don't know well
Birthday for someone who "doesn't need anything"

The botanical box means it's ready to give. No wrapping required. Just hand it over.

Skip it if the recipient dislikes scented products or prefers clinical skincare. The Honeycomb & Neroli fragrance is present and noticeable. For someone with allergies or sensitivities, this becomes a beautifully packaged problem.

The Soap Itself

Shea butter content makes it softer than standard bar soap. It lathers well without excessive foam. The bar is hefty enough that it doesn't disappear after a week of use. Formulary 55 calls it "superfatted," which means they've left extra oils in for moisture. Your hands don't feel tight or stripped after washing.

The botanical paper wrapping is lovely to look at but not reusable. Once you unwrap it, the soap needs somewhere to sit that allows drainage. The plate works perfectly because the glaze doesn't let water pool. Any moisture runs off the edges. The soap dries between uses instead of going soft.

After three weeks of daily use by two people, the bar is roughly two-thirds its original size. At this rate, it'll last six to eight weeks. That's $0.15 to $0.20 per day. Less than the pump soap was costing, and it looks significantly better.

What It Actually Is

This isn't a practical purchase. You don't need a $25 plate for an $8 bar of soap. You need a bar of soap. The plate is extra. But "extra" is the entire point.

The set works because it understands that small daily rituals matter. Washing your hands isn't profound. But doing it with soap that smells like honey and neroli whilst placing it back on a butterfly plate? That's a tiny moment of care in a day that's otherwise functional.

For $31, you're buying the permission to treat a bar of soap like it matters. The plate makes it matter. The scent makes you notice. Together, they turn a mundane action into something you're aware of doing.

It's not self-care in the face-mask-and-candles sense. It's self-care in the "my sink area looks intentional and I chose that" sense.

Buy: Formulary 55 Petite Honeycomb & Neroli Gift Set, $31