Info about Soap
soaps history
We use it daily and we can’t maintain ourselves healthy if we are not using it. Guess what this phrase is about! Yes, you are right! I’m talking about soap. But do we really know something about soaps history or we are using it only because it promises clean hands? Read on in this article and you will find some useful information about their history. The soaps history starts in India, where Hindus people were obliged to shower everyday with soapbutter. This was actually powder made of Reeta nut. Now don’t imagine that this looked exactly like the soap that you have in your bathroom. This was only a soap-like substance. The main component of this substance contains considerable amounts of saponion, a natural detergent that was often used for cleaning different products. The good thing is that this substance is also contained by other plants. In Egypt, people used a mix of animal and vegetable oils with alkaline salts to create a soap-like product that they used for bathing. Early soaps were also developed by Muslim chemists during medieval Islamic times in Iran and Iraq. There were made both types of soaps: solid and liquid perfumed ones. Even if in the contemporary era, soap is manufactured on a complex industrial scale, there are also some small scale manufacturers of handmade soaps. Surprisingly, there is an increasing demand for these soaps because people consider them to be of a higher quality than mass produced ones. For example, in 1998 in the Handcrafted Soap Makers Guild it was formed a small group of people who produced soap. Their mission was to promote the handcrafted soap industry and make it popular.
But now let’s go deeper in the soaps history because there are some interesting things waiting for us! In prehistoric times, people already know that water has amazing cleansing properties. In those times the used water to wash themselves but they didn’t know about the existence of soap. Greeks used blocks of sand and clay to clean their bodies. Clothes were washed in streams without soap. As I said above, the Egyptians used a mix made of animal and vegetable oils with alkaline salts. These salts were also used as treatment for various skin diseases. The moment when soap making became popular in Spain, Italy and France made its entrance to history. This happened in the 1200s. Unfortunately, that time soap was difficult to make and its used want to spread until the 18th century. Around 19th century it was discovered the chemical nature of soap and its action.
In the 20th century people made soap at home. In most cases they used pig lard and the soap make floated an egg in the lye to check if it was ready for use. Water was added only if the solution was too strong. If it was too weak, it was boiled again to the correct strength. These days, a small percentage of this industry uses this method. Soaps are now made of animal fat, coconut oil and, of course, chemical agents.