Cuba Material collection · Colección Cuba Material
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Bar of "Nácar" bath soap (green)
Object/Artifact
A rectangular bar of bath soap, pale green, embossed "NACAR" in block capitals across one face. Heavily aged: surface mottled with whitish bloom/efflorescence and brown discoloration, with cracking/erosion along the edges and a chipped notch at the top.
2025.1.165
Kept in a box, in the Arús Caraballo household, stored in a barbacoa for decades with other soaps.
Nácar soaps were sold through the ration card.
The Cabrera Arús family collection
2025.1
The two soaps were found in a box in a closet in the donor's house in the 2000s.
Suchel
Cuba
Caribbean
Central America
Nacar
Maker: Suchel Fragancia, the Cuban state enterprise responsible for soap and perfumery production (within the Grupo Empresarial de la Industria Ligera). "Nácar" was one of its long-standing ration-market toilet soaps. Date: circa 1960s–1980s (tentative). Nácar was produced for decades as a staple rationed soap (discontinued circa 2011); no date or batch mark on the bars, so the specific year is undetermined, but the collection context places these examples in the socialist period. In range.
Makers Mark
soap surfaces
NACAR
Spanish
mother of pearl
5 cm
8 cm
2 cm
Materials: Toilet/bath soap (saponified fats/oils), pigmented. Technique: Molded/stamped soap bar with embossed brand name.
Poor
MINIL
Gertrudis Caraballo Gálvez
owner
Havana
Cuba
Caribbean
Central America
"Nácar" was the everyday Cuban bath soap of the rationed (libreta) market for decades, produced by the state enterprise Suchel Fragancia (soap/perfumery, under the Grupo Empresarial de la Industria Ligera). Nácar and Batey were discontinued around 2011 and replaced by "Lis." Nácar (with Jovel/Batey) was the basic ration-book soap, contrasted with higher-quality imported "de olor" soaps sold in the parallel market (e.g., Romanian Palmier, 1980s) — documented in the Cuba Material project.