Soapmaking History

Soapmaking History

Soap is created in the chemical reaction called saponification. It is the process by which fats or oils are mixed with sodium or potassium hydroxide (lye). The reaction produces glycerol (glycerin, a moisturizer) and a fatty acid salt that come together to become the soap we use.

The first undocumented source of soap is said to have been discovered in prehistoric times. People cooking their meats over fires might have noticed after a rainstorm there was a strange foam around the remains of the fire and its ashes. Although this can not be proven, nor can it be said that that these early people knew or could even comprehend what to do with such a find. The first real evidence of soap making occurs around 2800 B. C.. Archaeologists have found clay cylinders left by the Mesopotamian civilization that had been coated with a soap-like substance. However, it is debated whether this "soap" was produce by the people or the product of time and nature coming together to produce the substance. Some say that the archeologists deciphered the inscriptions on the cylinders to find a description of fats being boiled with ashes, a basic method of making soap. However is not widely accepted that this is a true documentation. The real documentation of the production of a soap produce came 600 years later in 2200 B.C.in Ancient Babylon. Written on a clay tablet was a soap recipe consisting of water, alkali and cassia oil. Later, dated around 1500 B.C., writings in the Eyptian culture were uncovered describing the method of combining animal fats and oils with alkaline salts to create a soap type substance. Documentation from a Greek physician, Galen, written in the Zosimos of Panopolis c. 300 AD describes soap and soapmakings. The literature describes soap-making using lye and instructs washing to carry away impurities from the body and clothes.

Soapmaking guilds started popping up around 600 A.D. in Napals. Soapmaking was an established craft in Europe by the seventh century. Vegetable and animal oils were used with ashes of plants, some even added fragrance to the soap. The soap made by the American colonists is much the same soap that has been made since the Renaissance. The person making soap would collect lye by dripping water through wood ashes, and then mix the resulting lye with animal or vegetable fat to make soap.

The first of the American colonist came to the new land with a huge supply of soap from Europe. After the colonists were settled and had been able to survive the first years of hardships, they found it more advantageous to make soap themselves using the plentiful amount of wood ashes available with the equally plentiful supply of animal fat from the butchering of the animals they used for food, the colonists had on hand all the ingredients for soap making. On the homes or farms where butchering was not done, soap was generally made in the spring using the ashes from the winter fires and the waste cooking grease that had accumulated throughout the year. They did not have to rely on waiting for soap to be shipped from England and waste their goods or few pieces of currency in trade for soap. Although the majority of the soap produce was not the hard bar form that we use today, but a soft brown gel that would be scooped out of a barrel as needed. In order to make the soap in bar form, regular salt had to be added at the end of the soap cook. This simply was not practical for most people, salt was relatively expensive and what salt they had they used for livestock and meat preservation.

Commercial soapmaking in the American colonies began in 1608 with the arrival of several soapmakers on the second ship from England. In the larger towns and cities where there were soap makers making soap for sale in hard bard form. These hard bars that were produced were often scented with oils such as lavender, wintergreen, or caraway. For many years, however, most soapmaking was still a household chore. With a few days of hard work a usable soap could still be produced for free. Eventually a great number of home soapmaker and professional soapmakers began to exchange waste fats from households for some soap produced by the professionals.

Large-scale commercial soapmaking was made possible in 1791 when a French chemist, Nicholas Leblanc, patented a process for making soda ash, or sodium carbonate, from common salt. The Leblanc process yielded quantities of good quality, inexpensive soda ash. The soapmaking industry was furthered about 20 years later, by research done by a man named Michel Eugene Chevreul, who studied in depth, the chemical nature and relationship of fats, glycerine and fatty acids. These studies established the basis for both fat and soap chemistry. With these advancements, soapmaking became one of America's fastest-growing industries by the mid 1800's. The lower cost, more efficient mean of producing soap, changed the relationship of soap from a luxury item to a everyday item.

Wartime in the early 1900's produce a substantial change in soapmaking. In 1916 the first synthetic detergent were developed in Germany. The was the result of WWI shortages of fats for soapmaking. These detergent were synthesized from petroleum based products. Most soap products on the market today are not real soaps by the true definition but are detergents. There has been a small shift back to the production of real soap by some smaller companies, however, the heart of soapmaking is still alive in the homes of many people across the country.

Todays soapmaker concerns themselves with producing a luxurious high quality product, that not only cleanses but imparts skin enriching benefits to the finished products. These products can be a basic castille or a soap enriched with exotic butters and oils. The varieties in formulas, colors and scent would leave the soapmakers of old truly envious! Whether the recipe is basic or ultra moisturizing we can thank the trials, errors and successes of the soapmakers before us.

References: Soap. (2010, February 7). In Wikipedia, The Free Encyclopedia. Retrieved 15:53, February 8, 2010, from http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Soap&oldid=342434147

Colonial Craftsmen, Edwin Tunis The World Publishing Company, 1965

Colonial Days and Ways, Helen Evertson Smith The Century Company, 1900

Freeland, S. (2006, November 21). The History of Soap Making. Retrieved February 8, 2010, from http://ezinearticles.com/?The-