Soap

The first making of soap was known to date back as far as 2800BC. They were made by boiling fats and ashes and then let to set to make a bar of soap also used as hair styling aids. The egyptians used vegetable oils and alkaline salts as soap used for washing them selves and treating skin diseases.

The early greeks used blocks of clay, pumice, sand, salt and ashes and smothered themselves in oil, they used a metal instrument called a stragil to scrape off the oil and dirt resedue.

According to an ancient roman legend, soap got its name from mount sapo where many animals where sacrificed. The rain mixed with animal fat and wood ashes down into clay soil and the women found this cleaned with much less effort.

After the fall of the Roman empire in 467AD cleanliness declined and contributed greatly to the plagues and diseases in the midle ages, bathing and the use of soap started to come back into fashion.

In the 17th century soap making was considered a trade and fragrence was added. More varietys became available and there where soaps with different purposes such as shampoo soap or laundry soap.

France, Italy and Spain became large producers of soap as they had all the needed resources such as olive oil from the olive trees. The high tax on soap was removed and ordinary and poor people could afford it, the standards of cleanliness improved.

Soap continued to improved firstly with the introduction of soda ash (sodium carbonate) and then the ammonia process.

Nowadays soaps are made differently depending on its use, dishwasher powders are made with salts, chemicals and minerals where as soap bars used for cleaning the body are made sodium hydroxide, oil and glycerin.