Artuklu Halil Amca

Halil Amca was born in Mardin in 1959 and started in the dried-goods trade at nine years old, continuing work passed down father to son in the family. The soap that now carries his reputation came later: he began producing bıttım soap, made from pure pistachio oil boiled with additive materials, in 1995, using his own resources and methods rather than an inherited recipe. That soap sits alongside two other regional specialities the shop makes itself, a Special Dibek Coffee sold as a seven-mixture blend, and almond sugar offered in several variations, including a cinnamon version and one marketed under the name ghost almond sugar. The business operates from a single storefront on Mardin's 1. Cadde in the Artuklu district, and pairs that physical shop with an online store promising two-day shipping across Turkey. The company's own materials date the operation to the 1960s, while Halil Amca's personal account places his start in dried goods a decade later, in 1968, before the soap line began in 1995, a gap the business does not reconcile on its own site, but one consistent with a family trade that predates the individually branded soap product it is best known for today.