History of soap
Early history
The earliest record of soap production appears to be the Babylonians. In clay urns dating from about 2800 BC archaeologists found traces of a soap-like substance. A clay tablet dated to 2200 BC describes a formula for soap consisting of water, alkali and cassia oil. Further, we know that Babylonian kings used a kind of soap for bathing. Soap was probably used exclusively by the ruling families and to a lesser extent high officials. No evidence exists that farmers or artisans used it.The Egyptians created a primitive soap by combining oils with natron, an alkaline salt harvested from lakebeds. According to the Ebers Papyrus, the substance was considered a treatment for certain skin disorders as well as a cleanser.
the Roman experience
Though there have been various legends about Roman soap making, much of it is speculation. For example, some experts believe that a soap making facility was found in the ruins of Pompeii. However others point out that there is no conclusive evidence that it was in fact a factory for making soap. If any traces of soap were indeed found by previous excavators, none of it is known to exist today.Another legend surrounds an area on Mount Sapo which purportedly developed a soap-like substance when ashes mixed with fat during animal sacrifices. According to the story, women who were washing laundry in the river below found that dirt came out much more easily. While it is true that occasionally ash and fat can combine to create a light froth, it is doubtful that whatever small amount of soapy substance was created would have had any effect on an entire river. The story is probably just a myth.
That said, there is conclusive proof that at least one Roman knew about soap by the later stages of the empire since Pliny the Elder wrote an account in AD 77-78 describing soap manufacture from rendered animal fat and ashes. However, Pliny appears to have been unaware of its detergent properties. He describes it as a pomade for the hair, not as a cleanser. For most of ancient Roman history the use of soap as a detergent was - if not completely unknown - at least very rare.
This may have been in part due to the nature of Roman life. Unlike a modern citizen who expects to get clean in five to ten minutes by taking a shower, a typical Roman citizen might spend several hours in the bath house. Bathing could be a rather elaborate ritual involving hot, medium and cold baths and might well include a massage and cleaning. This cleaning was generally done with scented oil and sand which was rubbed on the body and then scraped off with a strigil, essentially a dull knife. In Rome, bathing was a social affair during which business was transacted, stories were exchanged, and citizens kept up to date on the events of the day. Given the leisurely use of baths, there may not have been a lot of demand for a skin cleanser.
Of course there are other potential uses for detergent, one of the most important being laundry. It is admittedly a bit surprising that Romans never considered using the soap mentioned in Pliny's account for this purpose, especially when one considers the labor intensive, foul smelling methods then in use. Laundry tradesmen, called fullones, put out pots on street corners which were filled with urine. These were collected and poured into a vat along with nitrum and fuller's earth. The laundry workers would then tramp on the laundry with their bare feet. It is difficult to imagine a task for which participants would be more motivated to affect an improvement!
Perhaps soap was simply not very effective at washing. This may well have been the case because we've found no evidence Romans ever saponified the pomade described by Pliny. Even if a few clever Romans did think of using soap for washing, maybe it was no better than using the traditional urine/natrum combination. It was also probably quite expensive, analogous to a modern luxury cosmetic product rather than a bulk laundry detergent.
The first definitive description of true soap, made from causticized lye and used as a detergent, was made by Galen (AD 129 – 200), the famous Greek physician. Interestingly, by the time of his writing, it had obviously been in production for some time, as he mentions the comparative qualities of the various available soaps. Specifically, German soap was considered the best while the Gallic soap was known to be harder, and of somewhat lower quality, but still effective.
It is likely that detergent soap had been in production for at least 50 years before Galen penned his treatise, long enough for the product to be widely traded and for the various qualities of soaps to be notable. From Galen's writing we can infer that soap was in use as a skin cleanser in various areas of the ancient world by about AD 100. Initially soap was probably considered a specialized product, used for washing skin afflicted with diseases or wounds, rather than for common use, but gradually obtained greater acceptance as a cleanser as people became more familiar with it.
rise of Christianity
Bathing in general went into decline with the rise of Christianity. Most of the public baths in Rome, and elsewhere throughout Europe, were closed down. The Church's disfavor was really directed against public bathing, then considered a source of immorality and debauchery. However at this time the alternative - private bathing - was an expensive, time-consuming chore for all but the wealthiest citizens. Most residents of Europe had no running water and merely collecting sufficient amounts of water for a bath was enough of a task. Add to this the time and fuel needed to heat the water, plus the labor needed to transport the water to the tub, and it should come as no surprise that a decline in public bathing almost always resulted in a decline in public washing and general cleanliness.However there was always some ambivalence on the part of the Church since cleanliness was considered a virtue. After the baths from the Roman era had been shut down for several hundred years it is likely that the memories of excess and immorality began to fade. The Frankish king Charlemagne seemed to have enjoyed public (or at least semi-public) bathing and built hot baths at his palace to which he invited friends, family and even regular soldiers. The baths of Aix-la-Chapelle were reopened and gradually bathing regained acceptability. Cleanliness was once again in fashion.
soapmaking in the middle ages
It is doubtful if soapmaking disappeared completely in Europe, even with the decline in bathing seen in the early middle ages. That said, it seems likely that production fell to low levels. Unfortunately, there isn't much literature about the subject. Soapmaking probably became a cottage industry, produced by individual families for personal use with excess sold to others at a small profit. Following a typical pattern, the small cottage producers found they were making sufficient profit to devote all of their time to production, and may have bought or rented premises to expand production even more. By the sixth century a soapmaking guild had formed in Naples. The De Villis capitulary cites soap as one of the products that stewards of estates should tally. Written around AD 800 this suggests that soap was well recognized and accepted by the 9th century.References to soapmaking in Britain appear from about AD 1000. (http://www.pharmj.com/Editorial/19991218/articles/soap.html) By the end of the twelfth century production was widespread. English soap at this time was usually made with rendered animal fat from cattle or sheep, as this was the most readily available. Though adequate for general cleaning it was not considered a fine soap.
Marseilles France became one of the chief exporters of better quality soap. Unlike English soap, which was tallow based, Marseilles soap used olive oil as its base lipid. Combining the olive oil with sea water, soda ash and lye, the solution was heated in a giant cauldron for several days. After a cooling period the mixture was poured into moulds and allowed to set. Once firm it was cut and stamped and finally allowed to fully harden. The entire process took up to a month.
Spain was another producer of high quality soap. In English speaking countries this became known as Castile soap. Like Marseilles soap, the base lipid was olive oil. One of the distinguishing features of this soap was its bright white color, due in large part to the unique process by which it was made. Departing from the practice of using the entire soap solution in the final product, Castile soapmakers skimmed pure soap from the surface. The resulting product was exceptionally light colored and hard. The purity of Castile soap was one factor which made it such an effective and versatile cleanser. Eventually the Castile process spread to other areas and some soapmakers used other oils besides that pressed from olives, but Spanish Castile soap was always considered of highest quality, a reputation which survives to the present day.
soapmaking in colonial America
(following uses: http://www.alcasoft.com/soapfact/historycontent.html) During the earliest phases of American colonial life, soap was simply one item among many brought along on the sailing ships. For example, the Talbot, a ship chartered by the Massachusetts Bay Company, had listed among its cargo 2 firkins of soap, equivalent to about 18 gallons in volume. However as their supplies dwindled, colonists had to replace them with homemade soap. Soapmaking soon became a common feature of colonial life.To obtain the lye water the colonists would use various methods. The first in use was the wooden barrel method. Using a barrel which was open on one end, several holes were drilled on the sealed end to allow the liquid to leach out. Laying the barrel sealed end down, small stones were placed on the bottom, followed by a layer of straw and finally wood ashes. Collected rainwater was then poured over the ashes. Gradually the lye water or potash (literally pot ash) would leach out the bottom. This would be collected in a smaller barrel placed underneath the edge of the table which supported the ash barrel.
Gradually more specialized tools were created. The ash hopper, for example, used essentially the same principle, but it was shaped like an inverted pyramid with the wide end open for shoveling in stones, straw and ashes. This was kept off the ground by a wooden frame. The collection bucket was placed on the ground under the hopper.
Fat rendering was another task necessary to make a useable soap. In these days before refrigeration, fat scraps and cooking grease tended to get rancid, and if used without rendering, would have made for a very malodorous soap. First, various fats left over from cooking and butchering were collected and boiled with water (preferably outdoors as the stink was considerable). As the fat and water mixture cooled, the fat would rise to the top, leaving impurities in the water below. The pure fat was skimmed from the top.
Next the lye water was boiled together with the rendered fat for six to eight hours until the mixture was saponified, that is, the fat and lye had reacted to create soap. A small amount of the solution placed on the tongue was one of the most reliable methods of determining if the mixture really had become soap. If there was no "bite" to the mixture, it was considered ready.
At this point the soap was essentially done, except for the cooling, at least so long as the colonists wanted soft soap. If a hard soap was desired, salt was added at the end of the boiling process. However for the early phases of colonial life, salt was expensive and hard to come by, so this step was usually omitted.
Soapmaking was considered one of the most difficult jobs on a homestead. Though not complex in principle, it was difficult in practice to get all of the proportions exactly right. Probably the hardest was ascertaining the strength of the lye. In colonial days one couldn't exactly dip a chemical test strip into the solution to read the alkalinity. Instead it was based on educated guesswork. One way was to float an egg in the potash solution. By looking at the percentage of the egg which rose above the surface of the solution, a determination of the strength of the potash could be made. But it took a good deal of experience to be able to "read" the level of the egg. Another method was to place objects into the potash to see the rate at which they dissolved. A feather was a common object.
Needless to say, the difficulty of making soap made it a profitable substance to manufacture for anyone who had the expertise to do so. Soap manufactories began sprouting up throughout the colonies. This fed a tremendous demand for potash and the dried variant, pearlash. Pedlars began traveling throughout the countryside collecting ashes and potash. For some homesteaders this was their only source of money income. The Governor of Massachusetts stated that the production of potash was among the best business ventures for the colonies.
the story of Pears' Soap
Soap eventually became more common as more and more soapmakers entered the trade, but it was still a fairly rough product by modern standards. English soaps were better quality overall, but neither England nor the United States were known to create very good soap. Better quality soaps were available from southern Europe but they were prohibitively expensive to most customers.One person who sought to change that was Andrew Pears. The son of a farmer, Andrew Pears moved to London around 1787 to train as a barber. After completing his apprenticeship in 1789, he opened a shop on Gerrard Street in Soho, one of the wealthier areas of the day. He produced his own cosmetic products as a routine part of his business. He found that the harsh soaps then in use actually caused skin irritation for which his clients purchased his cosmetics to cover.
Pears experimented with different methods of producing and purifying soap, eventually creating the signature soap that became so famous. Very pure and high in glycerine, Andrew Pears' soap had an important distinguishing characteristic: it was transparent. It was also very mild and tended not to irritate skin as did so many other soaps. It quickly gained a solid reputation. In fact Andrew Pears was a bit obsessive about guarding the reputation of his soap, at one stage going so far as to sign each package of soap to certify that it was, in fact, genuine Pears soap and not one of his imitators. (http://www.bubbles.org/html/history/bubhistory.htm)
His grandson Francis Pears joined the business in 1835 and the A. & F. Pears Ltd. partnership was formed. When Andrew retired in 1838 he left Francis in charge of the company. Francis' son-in-law Thomas J. Barratt eventually came to manage the firm.
Barratt was a master of promotion and is often considered the father of modern advertising. Before Barratt, advertising was considered a form of announcement. For example, one might advertise that a certain number of crates of nails were to be auctioned on a particular wharf. Even the most sophisticated advertisements of the day were little more than collections of facts about the product. Though they might be informative and useful, they were geared toward cognitive acceptance, not emotional appeal.
Barratt implicitly recognized the importance of combining images and memorable catch phrases, or slogans, rather than enumerating flattering facts about a product. Rather than, for example, telling a customer that Pears was a quality soap and detailing quality control procedures, he bought copyrights to popular works of art, and had these painstakingly adapted to plates to produce posters which had exceptional sharpness and color quality. The Pears brand name would be placed tastefully, but prominently, across the top. A prime example was the advertisement based on the famous John E Millais painting "A Child's World". This portrayed a young, well dressed child contemplating a bubble he had just blown from a soap pipe. The fact that the child was likely from a well-to-do family could be ascertained instantly by his dress and demeanor. The association of the soap with a comfortable, wealthy "lifestyle" (as we would say today) bypassed the intellect and simply became a part of the consumer's consciousness.
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This essential strategy is used today to sell everything from life insurance to fabric softener. Virtually no details about the product are given. Instead reassuring images and voices invoke a sense of trust through association. Can anyone cite details about Allstate's percentage of claim denials? Probably not (though they should because they are particularly high). But virtually everyone remembers the cupped hands symbolizing the idea that you will not fall into poverty should you elect to use the particular insurance company.
Barratt had many other techniques up his sleeve as well, everything from celebrity endorsements (which are still quite important for some products) to printing the Pears soap name on circulated foreign currency (which we don't see too much of these days). It seems that Barrett left no stone unturned when it came to promoting his soap.
Barratt's strategies paid off. Despite its high price, Pears soap sold strongly throughout the 19th century, becoming one of the best known product brands in England. In 1851 Pears was awarded the prize medal for soap at The Great Exhibition. Eventually Pears soap was bought by Lever Brothers and is still sold today, still being promoted with simple, high quality images suggesting quality.
rise of modern soapmaking
Throughout history, soap has been an important driver of chemical technology. As we have seen, getting a good quality soap is hard enough. But doing so at a reasonable price is very tricky indeed. We shouldn't be surprised. After all, washing dirt off the skin or clothing involves a fundamental contradiction. How do you get dirt, which is generally suffused with oil, to wash away in water, which is naturally repelled by it? Though apparently simple, detergent action essentially aims to combine oil and water, which we know is no easy feat.One of the problems encountered by soapmakers in the late 18th century was obtaining sufficient amounts of lye to produce soap. Traditionally soapmakers used potash derived from leaching water through wood ashes, however this became increasingly difficult to obtain in Europe as more and more forests were cleared. Coal was emerging as the fuel of choice. Though potash was available from America, Scandinavia and Russia, it was expensive and future supplies were in question.
the French Academy of Sciences, with the backing of Louis XVI, offered a substantial prize of 2400 livres to anyone who could find a method to produce alkali from salt. In 1791 a French physician named Nicolas Leblanc offered a solution.
Using a chemical process previously developed by a Swedish chemist, Leblanc first reacted salt with sulfuric acid to produce hydrochloric acid gas and sodium sulfate.
The sodium sulfate (or salt cake), in turn, was mixed with calcium carbonate (crushed limestone) and carbon (coal) and then fired. The resulting chemical reaction oxidized the carbon and left behind a mixture of solid sodium carbonate and calcium sulfide. This was called black ash. Next the water soluble sodium carbonate was extracted by washing the black ash with water.
With many large salt mines operational in Europe, and plentiful limestone and coal, this was a much more effective way to obtain lye than from soaking ashes. However this did mean increasing use of sodium carbonate rather than potassium carbonate. The important point was that now there was an inexpensive, bulk method to produce lye.
Eugene-Michel Chevreul further advanced the soap making industry in 1811 by determining the exact quantities of fat and lye to use to produce soap, rather than basing it on estimation and guesswork. This helped transform the soap business from a cottage industry into a mass production process we are familiar with today.
Please leave a comment about this article!
1 messages.
Good work
Posted 08 Jul 2010 by robertn
Thanks for this informative article!