Written recipes for soap date back nearly 5, years, with variations from Mesopotamia, Egypt, ancient Greece, and Rome. Tallow, or animal fat, along with lye, remains a basic ingredient of soap. Fat reacts with lye—a substance made in ashes that can be pretty toxic, which is why soap makers need to wear protective gear—in a process called saponification. The story is that the drippings and ashes from the cook fires of the gods rolled down the hill and were discovered by filth-encrusted Romans.
Modern soap makers—at least those working in small, artisanal operations—use the same techniques. The saponification process yields a thick slurry. What are famous brands of detergents?
Read about this useful cleaning substance that is used in cleaning dishes, laundry and other surfaces. In the early beginnings of soap making, it was an exclusive technique used by small groups of soap makers. The demand for soap was high, but it was very expensive and there was a monopoly on soap production in many areas.
Over time, recipes for soap making became more widely known, but soap was still expensive. Back then, plant byproducts and animal and vegetable oils were the main ingredients of soap. The price of soap was significantly reduced in when a Frenchman by the name of LeBlanc discovered a chemical process that allowed soap to be sold for significantly less money.
More than 20 years later, another Frenchman identified relationships between glycerin, fats and acid what marked the beginning of modern soap making. With the discovery of another method of making soap ingredients, soap became even less expensive.
Since that time, there have been no major discoveries and the same processes are used for the soap making we use and enjoy today. It consisted of three basic ingredients: water, an alkali and the oil of Cassia.
Soap was also mentioned by the ancient Egyptians in their texts dating from BC and appears in the Bible in Jeremiah and Malachi With all of the information archaeologists have uncovered, it is assumed that soap was invented in the Middle East. Much later in the second century AD, the Roman Empire had not adopted soap as their main method of cleansing. The Romans preferred to soak in oils, which they then removed by scraping off before bathing in water. However, there is some evidence that soap was already on the horizon.
Whether this sapo included lye and fat or actually referred to sodium bicarbonate closer to baking soda is lost to history. Either way, the needle of progress was moving mankind closer to modern-day soaps. Italy and Spain were some of the primary soap producers of Europe, making their soaps with alkali and goat fat.
Much of the world at the time used alkali and vegetable oils. The common sentiment was that European soaps had an unpleasant aroma. Thus, soap was often imported from the Middle East. There, essential oils and other perfumes gave the soap a pleasant aroma.
In England, soap was somewhat foreign in the middle ages. A 12th-century British chronicler from this time, John of Wallingford, recorded that he disapproved of immigrants who bathed, combed their hair and changed their clothes every day. Needless to say, bathing was not as popular as it is today!
In the spring, they made lye from the ashes and then boiled it with fat and grease in a giant kettle. This produced a soft soap that women used to wash the linen shifts that colonists wore as undergarments.
Middle-class Americans had resumed water bathing, but still shunned soap. Soap-making remained an extension of the tallow trade that was closely allied with candle making. Soap itself was for laundry. The Civil War was the watershed. Thanks to reformers who touted regular washing with water and soap as a sanitary measure to aid the Union war effort, bathing for personal hygiene caught on.
Demand for inexpensive toilet soaps increased dramatically among the masses. Companies began to develop and market a variety of new products to consumers.
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