The History of Soap

No one really knows who discovered soap or when it was discovered. Stories and legends abound regarding how it all started. One legend attributes the discovery to the Romans in 1000 BC. It is said that poor Romans made makeshift altars on Mount Sapo where they made animal sacrifices to their gods. Over time, the fat from the animals and the alkali, leached out of the ashes by rain, accumulated and mixed. The mass of fats and alkali flowed downhill to the Tiber river where it accumulated in the clay soil.   Local women soon discovered that the clay around Mount Sapo had special properties that made their clothes easier to wash and cleaner. Although this is probably just a legend, sapo is the origin of the word soap in many European languages. (test)

The earliest records of soap date back about 5000 years.  During excavations of ancient Babylon, clay cylinders with a soap-like substance were found.   The cylinder inscriptions speak of a soap making method that was used well into the 19th century, boiling fats with ashes.  However, there was no mention of the purpose of this substance.  In a later age, similar substances were also used to style hair.

The Eber Papyrus, an Egyptian medical document from about 1500 B.C., documents the combination of animal fats and plant oils with alkaline salts for treatment of skin diseases and washing. During that period, however, most people used tree bark and herbs such as soapwort to cleanse their bodies.

Bathing habits all over Europe rose and declined with Roman civilization. When Rome fell in 467 A.D., so did bathing. It’s said that the lack of cleanliness and poor living conditions contributed to the many plagues of the Middle Age.

Not until the seventh century did soapmakers appear in Spain and Italy where soap was made with goat fat and Beech tree ashes.  During the same period, the French started using olive oil to make soap. Eventually, fragrances were introduced and specialized soaps for bathing, shaving, shampooing, and laundry began to appear.

The English began making soap during the 12th century. In 1622 King James I granted a $100,000 a year monopoly to a soapmaker. However, it wasn't until the 18th century that washing one's body came back into fashion. During those days, soap was an expensive luxury item, because large amounts of hardwood were required to make the lye needed to produce soap. 

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All of this changed in 1791 when the French chemist Nicolas Leblanc discovered how to extract soda from common salt.  Around the same time, Louis Pasteur's findings that personal hygiene reduces the spread of diseases helped soap gain a permanent foothold.   However, in those days taking a naked bath was considered sinful; it took another 100 years until daily cleansing of the body became an accepted practice.

By the beginning of the 19th century, soapmaking was one of the fastest growing industries in the U.S.

During World War I, the history of soap took another turn when fats were in severe shortage.  German scientists created a new form of soap made with various synthetic compounds. Today these "soaps" are called detergents and by law cannot be called soap.  Chances are that when you see a soap called a "cleanser", it is not soap at all.

Until the 1930's, soap was made by a method called batch kettle boiling. Commercial soap makers had huge three story kettles that produced thousands of pounds of soap over the course of about a week.  Shortly thereafter, an invention called continuous process was introduced and refined by Procter & Gamble.  This process decreased soapmaking production time to less than a day.

Today, large commercial soap manufacturers still use continuous process, but the public's demand for environmentally safe products, cruelty free and vegetarian products, natural ingredients, and less chemicals has rekindled the cottage soapmaking industry, especially in Europe and the U.S.  Stores like the Body Shop have tapped into this demand and undergone tremendous growth by marketing alternative products.    However, it is virtually impossible for large companies like these to create natural, handmade soaps for an international market.

Before the emergence of the Internet, real handmade soaps were only sold at craft fairs, farmers markets, and an occasional mail order catalog.  Now the Internet has allowed soapmakers like us to offer our wares to a worldwide audience without compromising our ingredients. For example, we make cucumber soaps when cucumbers are ready to be picked during the hot summer months.  The mild Florida winters allow us to harvest Calendula and Chamomile to make extra gentle soaps ideal for sensitive skin and babies.

Today's handcrafted soaps are not grandma's harsh lye soap.   Chances are that grandma used a raw egg to determine the amount of lye needed to make soap.  If the egg sunk in the lye solution, grandma added more lye until the egg started to float.   This method often resulted in harsh soap, which has given lye soap an undeserved bad reputation.   Today's cottage soapmaker works with saponification charts to determine the minimum amount of lye needed for each particular oil or fat used in the soap making process.   In addition, we use scales that are much more accurate, allowing us to measure ingredients by the tenth of an ounce.  Click here to learn more about how we make soap.

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