Advertisement (ca. 1960) for Chanteclair, the Marseilles soap, the best laundry soap as the caption tells us. Manufactured under license by Sirio in Milan, Italy. Marseille soap or Savon de Marseille is a traditional soap made from vegetable oils that has been made around Marseilles, France, for about 600 years, the first documented soapmaker in the area being recorded in about 1370.