A Brief History of Soap

Soap has been around in one form or another for millennia. Since around 2,800 BC we humans have enjoyed the benefits of cleansing our bodies, clothes, cooking tools and homes with some form of soap.

What is soap? Soap is the result of mixing fatty acid(s) (oils and tallows) with an alkali (base) such as sodium hydroxide or potassium hydroxide (lye). The conversion process which occurs when these fats are combined with a lye solution is called saponification.

How does soap work? Once saponification is complete you now have soap. Soap molecules are long chains of carbon and hydrogen atoms. One end of the chain is hydrophilic (which attracts water) and the other end of the chain is hydrophobic (which is repelled by water) but attracts grease. This little marvel of not so modern science attracts water and grease to wash the dirt and germs away.

The earliest documented record of soap and soap making hails from ancient Babylon. In the early days in Egypt, the middle east and Asia soap was made by combining ash with oils and/or tallows. Soap could be harsh as it was not yet possible to calculate the purity of ash or the saponification values of various oils. While the types of ash and combination of fats used in different parts of the world varied, the method used to create soap was similar.

Around the 1700’s materials for soap making became easier to come by and more uniform. Soap became both easier to produce and less expensive. Overall, the process used for making soap remains largely unchanged since we first discovered the chemical process used to create it. The only significant improvement has been the process used to purify lye. This enables modern soap makers to create beautiful and gentle yet cleansing soap with a level of accuracy and precision not available in the ancient world.

Somewhere along the way detergents were created and we began to migrate away from using soap, favoring the new fan dangled appearance of beauty bars, skin cleansers and the like. These products are marketed as soap, but don’t be fooled! Most of these are detergents made on a large scale using harsh chemical ingredients which are not actually beneficial for the skin.

It is refreshing to see the shift away from chemical laden products back to using more natural products with simple ingredients in all aspects of our lives.