An introduction to the rich history of soap!

When I first started training as a soapmaker, I became very curious about all things soap! Especially where it came from. I discovered that soap and soap-making have a very rich and ancient history. In this series of articles I’ll be sharing the fascinating story of how soap got here!

Did you know that soap existed for thousands of years before it was used in bathing and on bodies?

How was soap discovered? What is soap made of? Who were the pioneers of plant based soaps? And how did it spread to the rest of the world?

What is soap?

When you hold a bar of soap in your hand it's a pretty amazing thing. Modern soap needs just two ingredients: lye (mixed with water) and oil. But soap is also one of the most ancient things humans have made and used. And yet, a fun fact: for a very long time to come, soap wasn't used for our bodies.

How was soap discovered?

It's possible that the very first soap was discovered by a happy accident: the combination of tallow fat and wood ash. Back when food was cooked over an open fire, it's easy to see how these two substances came together.

The result was a chemical reaction that created a slippery mixture that might have been quite greasy and smelly! That mixture turned out to be great at lifting dirt off and allowing it to be washed away.

When and where was soap first used? 

Written recipes for soap date back around 5,000 years to places in Mesopotamia such as ancient Babylon. But they weren't using it to wash their bodies, more likely it was used to clean textiles and tools.

Skip forward around 1000 years and it seems that the ancient Egyptians were also making soap. It's thought though that it was used for more medicinal purposes rather than bathing.

Even in ancient Greece and Rome, where they loved bathing, soap was used for washing clothes. In contrast, bathing rituals involved immersing the body in water, smearing on oil (not soap) and then scraping the oil away.

So for the first few thousand years of its history, soap wasn’t generally to wash our bodies, but rather to clean other things.

When and where was plant-based soap invented?

In the Middle Ages it seems that soap makers in the middle-east were experimenting with vegetable fats, primarily olive oil, to make a more solid mixture that may have been some of the first vegan soap bars. Ever heard of Aleppo soap from Syria?

As the Crusaders brought this soap back to Europe, soap became popular among the wealthy European classes. But it's also thought that the less wealthy may have been making their own versions at home. It was around the 12th century that parts of Europe began to move away from water and oil, to using soap for bathing. Thousands of years after the first soap, people were finally using soap to wash their bodies!

Soap, as we now know it, was on it's way!

What happened next?

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