Chapter I - Historical Background of Soap

1.1 Definition

Soap (from the late Latin sapo, -onis, and this from the Germanic saipôn) is a product
which is used for personal hygiene and to wash certain objects. It can be found
in tablet, in powder, in cream or in liquid. A soap is a substance with two parts,
one of them called lipophilic (or hydrophobic), binds to the fat droplets and the other,
called hydrophilic, it binds to water. This way, fat is dissolved in
water. Soap is a cleaning agent or detergent that is made using fats
vegetables and animals and oils. Chemically, it is the sodium or potassium salt of an acid
Grease formed by the reaction of fats and oils with alkali.

1.2 Origins of Soap

No one knows when or where the first soap was made. The Roman legend claims
that soap was discovered by the rainwater that washed down the sides of the
Mount Saps, alongside the Tiber River. The fat from numerous animal sacrifices mixed.
with the ashes of wood (from the ceremonial fires) and the slaves noticed their
properties for cleaning, first your hands and then the clothing.

The oldest remnants of soap were found in clay jars of Babylonian origin.
Around 2800 B.C., the inscriptions on the cylinders describe the mixture of fats.
boiled with ashes. This is a method of soap making, but there is no mention of
its use or purpose. The earliest literary reference to soap was found in
the clay tablets that date back to the 3rd millennium B.C. in Mesopotamia.
These writings contain a recipe for making soap with a mixture of potash and oil.
Another recipe contains the ingredients of a medicinal soap prescription.

1.2.1 East.

The Phoenicians around the year 600 B.C. used soap in cleaning the
textile fibers of wool and cotton, as well as in the preparation for weaving the cloths.

The treatment of fat with an alkali - ash is an alkali just like soda is -
It has been practiced in the Middle East for at least 5000 years. The ancients
Israelis had detailed the laws governing personal cleanliness. The accounts
biblical sources suggest that it was known that ashes and oil, when mixed, produced a certain kind.
hair washing product.

The Egyptians may have made a similar discovery. The ruins of a factory
Soap was discovered in Pompeii about 2000 years ago. It is well known
that the Romans built their public baths around 312 B.C., however, they did not
do you know if the soap was used for personal cleaning or if they produced it as
commercial material.
1.2.2 Roma.

The Greeks and Romans of that time would rub their bodies with olive oil and
arena. A scraper, called strigil, was used to remove the sand and oil afterwards.
olive along with dirt, grease, and dead skin cells. The skin was finally
rubbed with preparations made from herbs. The documents that mention this practice
They commonly make no mention of soap or the act of bathing.

1.2.3 Europe.

It is believed that the art of soap making was brought to Europe by the Phoenicians.
Around the year 600 BC. It seems that the purpose of using soap during the second
century, was strictly medicinal, for example for the treatment of pain in the
scrofulous keratitis. Galen was the first to mention soap.
for personal hygiene or washing clothes. It was also observed that cleanliness had
a healing effect on skin diseases. Pliny the Elder, in his texts of history
(77 B.C.) it says that the Gauls made soap with goat fat and ash from the
hay (potash), using it as a dye and ointment for hair. It also mentions the
use of common salt, added to the mixture, to harden the soap bars.

Soap making disappeared from Europe with the decline of the Roman Empire.
Around the 7th century, soap making became an art in Venice and it
registered for export. In England of the twelfth century, a soft soap, of French origin,
It was used by the upper classes. It was a mixture of lamb fat, ash from
wood and caustic soda, which preserved the texture of the fat. Most of the
soap manufacturers had no idea about what was happening during the process.
They employed the method of trial and error, relying on luck, and believing in
many superstitions.

Soap making remained a relatively primitive art until the 16th century,
When were the techniques that provided a purer soap developed.

Spain was the main soap manufacturer in the 800s and the production of 'hawking' soap.
started again in England around the year 1200; probably as a result of the
Norman invasion. In the 13th century, Marseille, Genoa, Venice, and Savona became
in trading centers due to its local abundance of olive oil deposits and of
soda, but it was in the Italian city of Savona (to which it owes its name) where
he began to make a soap made from olive oil known as 'Castile Soap'.
The soap industry flourished, favored by the abundant presence of olive oil and
the natural soda, coming from the ashes of seaweed, then the 'Soap of
Marseille.
1.2.4 France.

In northern France, where it was more difficult to produce olive oil, the
manufacturers resorted to animal fats, they even turned to oils from the
fish. The soaps were of poor quality and were only suitable for washing
Textiles and clothing. There is a false popular idea that suggests that in the Middle Ages
people did not bathe often. On the contrary, there were many public baths. The nobles and
the wealthy merchants had their own private baths with large wooden tubs and
they abundantly used bars of soap. It was during the late Middle Ages,
when bathing fell out of favor. Public baths were closed because the
Authorities at the time thought that these baths promoted the spread of the plague.
The inhabitants of the Renaissance were not very fond of keeping the body clean and
they preferred instead to cover the odors with perfumes.

1.2.5 England.

It was manufactured commercially in England only from the 14th century: and two centuries
later, large amounts of Castile soap were imported from Spain, while
the peace lasted. In 1638, a soap manufacturing company was established whose products are
they were mainly used for laundry. There was a toilet water or water of
myrrh, with which English women would soak a cloth and pass it over their faces
the night. It is said that when they gifted a soap to the Duchess of Julich in 1549
(Germany) felt very offended. The bar soap was a luxury product whose use
it became common only in the 19th century.

1.2.6 North America.

The first North American colonists brought an abundant source of soap

together with them. A shipping list of The Talbot, a ship from the Massachusetts Bay
Company, which took people and cargo from England to its colonies in Naumbeak (now
Salem and Boston), consign a "firkin" of soap. The firkin is an old measure of a barrel.
of about nine gallons capacity. John Winthrop, the first governor of the
Massachusetts Bay Colony, when he wrote to his wife in 1630 he included the
soap on your list of necessities.

Once installed, the settlers made their own soap so as not to depend on the
English shipments. For this, they used wood ash and animal fat. Their preparation
it was an activity that generally took place once a year. Those who did not sacrifice
animals, used to keep the oil from frying to make their soap as they still do
making some Americans nowadays.

1.2.7 Sweden.

In 1783, the Swedish chemist Carl Wilhelm Scheele boiled olive oil with
lead oxide, producing a sugary substance that he called Ölsüss, (glycerin).
This reaction is the one occurring in the current soap manufacturing process.
Curiously, Scheele a few years earlier (1774) had isolated elemental chlorine, so
employee currently for household cleaning. The accidental discovery of the
glycerin stimulated another French chemist, Michel Eugène Chevreul, to investigate chemistry.
of the fats and oils used to make soap. In 1823, the French
discover that simple fats decompose in the presence of an alkali to form
fatty acids and glycerols. Nevertheless, soap production reaches maturity.
In 1791, when the French chemist Nicolas Leblanc invented a process to obtain the
sodium carbonate, or soda, from table salt.

1.2.8 Current situation.

In ancient times, potassium carbonate (K2CO3) obtained by was called 'potash'.

in the middle of wood ash leachate, a practice that until a few decades ago
was used by Italian women to wash sheets, but it currently applies to
various potassium compounds. Potassium carbonate is also obtained by the
reaction of potassium hydroxide with carbon dioxide and is used to make soap
soft and glass. Potassium hydroxide (KOH), also known as caustic potash, is
obtained by the electrolysis of potassium chloride or by the reaction of potassium carbonate and
calcium hydroxide; it is the most used in soap manufacturing. When dissolved in a
water proportion lower than its weight, forms a strongly alkaline solution that
emits heat.

Since then and until now, what has evolved the most in soap is not so much its
formulation rather than its appearance. They have transitioned from their old rough and unpleasant texture to
the careful appearance of the soap we know, not to mention the colorful and
colorful presentations of handmade soaps that we found today in
day.