The Story of Soap

It's Not Your Grandma's Lye Soap

The phrase "Grandma's Lye Soap" still strikes fear into many people. Never fear, today's handmade lye soaps are made in carefully controlled conditions, making for natural soaps that are gentle to the skin.

Why buy handmade soap when you can buy commercially made soap at any grocery store? The obvious answer is, to control what goes onto and into your skin. A superior bar of soap calls for the right combination of oils. Our natural, vegan, Fragrant Rain Soap™ contains coconut oil for superior lather, palm kernel oil for a harder, longer lasting bar, soy, olive and castor oils to make a soap that is especially mild and skin nourishing. The addition of natural shea butter is for a more luxuriously, moisturizing bar of soap that you would find at upscale boutiques.

Our all natural soaps are made the cold process way. This term means that no outside heat is needed to make the soap. When you add the right combination of natural oils with the lye solution, they react with extreme heat to separate the oils into fatty acids and the lye into sodium and hydroxide ions. Together, they become soap that is 40% glycerine! The entire process takes 24 hours to end up with a semi-solid batch of soap that weighs 18 pounds, but to totally turn the mixture into soap takes an additional 4 weeks of sitting on a shelf, curing. This is when the excess water is evaporated and any leftover lye is absorbed and turned into soap and glycerine. 

Soaps sold at grocery stores are made of 55% or more synthetic detergents. Synthetics (mostly petroleum based chemicals) are harsher to your skin than natural soap. The natural glycerine in commercial bars is extracted during the soapmaking process and sold to cosmetic companies. Glycerine is a natural moisturizer that boosts lather, providing a milder soap that is gentle to the skin. Since it is a valuable commodity, it is sold at a much higher price than the soap! Now you know why commercial bars of soap are so cheap and why handmade soaps are so good for your skin!

 

The Origins of Soap
 

Certainly the origins of soap are not fully known, but it is possible that soap has been around since prehistoric times. Earliest cavemen who cooked their meat over open fires might have noticed after a rainstorm that there was a strange foam around the remains of the fire and it's ashes. They might have even noticed when water was put in pots that had been used for cooking meats and then got ashes in it, (which can happen with outdoor cooking), that the pots also had this strange foamy substance. Women who most likely did the washing of the pots, probably observed that the pots became cleaner than usual with less effort.

Historical records show that the Babylonians were making soap around 2800 B.C. and an ancient Egyptian medical document dating around 1500 B.C. called the Ebers Papyrus, describes a soap like material made from combining oils with alkali salts (lye) used for washing and treating skin diseases. Records show the Phoenicians were using soap around 600 B.C. to clean wool, cotton and natural textile fibers in preparation of weaving. 

Soap got it's name, according to an ancient Roman legend, from Mount Sapo, where animals were sacrificed. Rainwater washed a mixture of melted animal fat, or tallow, and wood ashes down into the clay soil along the Tiber River. Women found that this clay mixture made their wash cleaner with much less effort. Proof of soap making is found in the history of ancient Rome. Pliny, the Roman historian, described soap being made from goat's tallow and beech wood ashes. He also wrote of common salt being added to make the soap hard. The ruins at Pompeii revealed a soap factory complete with finished bars.

While the Romans are well known for their public baths, generally soap was not used for personal cleaning. To clean the body the Romans would rub the body with olive oil and sand. A scraper, called a strigil, was then used to scrape off the sand and olive oil also removing dirt, grease, and dead cells from the skin leaving it clean. Afterwards the skin was rubbed down with salves prepared from herbs.

Throughout history people were also known to take baths in herb waters and other additions to the bathing medium thought to be beneficial. It is well known that Cleopatra, who captivated the leaders of the Roman world, attributed her beauty to her baths in mare's milk. In the 1st century A.D. soap was used by physicians in the treatment of disease. Galen, a 2nd century physician, recommended that bathing with soap would be beneficial for some skin conditions. Soap for personal washing became popular during the later centuries of the Roman era.

The Celtic people are also thought by some historians to have discovered soap making and that they were using it for both bathing and washing. When the Romans started to use soap in public baths in the 3rd century A.D. in major cities, the people in small villages were probably still using the olive oil, sand, and strigil method. It is thought that the Celts might have been washing their faces daily with soap long before the Romans went over the Italian Alps. Certain events in history are recorded accurately, but we have no specific dates on the use of everyday items. The legend of the discovery of soap making is a Roman legend and seems to confront the Celtic claim to soap making. In reality, it is conceivable that both of these highly inventive people discovered soap making independently.

 

The Dark Ages

After the fall of the Roman Empire little soap making was done and a widespread decline of bathing occured. In the Byzantine Empire, the remains of the Roman world in the eastern Mediterranean area, and in the expanding Arab world soap was made and used. Around the 8th century soap making was revived in Italy and Spain. By the 13th century, France also became a producer of soap for the European market. During the 14th century, soap making was started in England. Soaps produced in the south of Europe, Italy, Spain, and the southern ports of France (Marseilles and Castile soaps) were made from olive oils. These soaps made using olive oils were of a higher quality than those made by the soap producers of England and northern France. These northern soap makers, not being able to obtain the olive oil, made their soaps with only animal fats. Tallow, the fat from cattle, was the chief fat used. Northern European soap makers even resorted to making soap from fish oils. These soaps were adequate for use in cleaning laundry and textiles but the olive oil soaps were preferable for bathing. These superior soaps from southern Europe made with olive oils were highly sought after and this resulted in a lively trade of exporting fine soaps from southern Europe. In 1622, King James I of England granted a monopoly to a soapmaker who could make fine soaps for $100,000.

Many people believe that people did not take baths in the Middle Ages. That is a popular misconception. They did. There were public bath houses, called stews, where the patrons bathed in large wooden tubs and were given bars of soap to use. Nobles and rich merchants had their own private baths. It was during the later Medieval Times, when bathing fell out of favor. Public baths were closed because the authorities of the time thought these baths promoted the spread of the Black Plague of the 14th century. In essence, the lack of personal hygiene and unsanitary living conditions only contributed to bringing about more infection and widespread disease. In general people of the Renaissance moved away from the idea of keeping the body clean. They preferred to cover the body with heavy scents.

Soap, however, did remain a useful item for cleaning and washing clothes. Soap also was still used for personal washing as well but by our standards far less frequently than was needed. The fact that soap was a valuable item in the 17th and 18th centuries even though the idea of bathing was not popular is shown by the efforts the settlers to the New World took to make it. While it is true that bathing the whole body was out of fashion, keeping your surroundings clean was not.

 

Soap in the American Colonies

The first settlers brought a plentiful supply of soap along with them. The Talbot, a ship chartered by the Massachusetts Bay Company to carry people and supplies from England to its colonies at Naumbeak now known as Salem and Boston, listed among its cargo 2 firkins of soap. A firkin is an old measurement which was a wooden, hooped barrel of about nine gallon capacity. John Winthrop, who became the first governor of the Massachusetts Bay Colony, wrote to his wife in 1630 from Boston, telling her to include soap in a list of necessities to be brought over, on her crossing to the New World.

After the colonists were settled and had been able to survive the first years of hardships, they found it advantageous to make soap themselves using the generous amount of wood ashes left from their homesteading activities. They had a plentiful supply of animal fats from the butchering of the animals they used for food. The colonists had on hand all the ingredients needed for soap making. They did not have to rely on waiting for soap to be shipped from England and use their few pieces of currency in trade for soap.

Soap making was performed as a yearly or semi-annual event on the homesteads of the early settlers. As the butchering of animals took place in the fall, soap was made then, to utilize the large supply of tallow that resulted. On the homes or farms where butchering was not done, soap was generally made in the spring using the ashes from the winter fires and the waste cooking grease, that had accumulated throughout the year.

 

Modern Soap

Soap manufacturing stayed basically the same until 1916. It was then that the first synthetic soap, or detergent, was made in Germany, in response to World War I related shortages of fats and oils necessary for making soap. Household detergent production began in the United States in the early 1930's but didn't really take off until after World War II. Most products on the market today are not real soaps by the true definition of the word but rather are detergents which have been created from petroleum based products. Other products, which called themselves soap, contain ingredients found in nature; but these ingredients have been radically changed by high energy processes. The resulting soap bears little similarity to the soap made historically down through the ages.

The “melt and pour” glycerine soaps which have gained in popularity, are not handmade soaps made from scratch. It's easy to go to a hobby store, buy a glycerine soap base, melt it in the microwave and pour it in a mold. However, many people find these glycerine soaps extremely drying to the skin. Why is that? It is made out of glycerine, right? That's because melt and pour bases are manufactured in factories where they add synthetic and petroleum based chemicals to the product. Before you buy your next bar of soap, read the ingredients on the label, if you can!

 

The Chemistry of Soap

Soap is a chemical reaction between an acid and a base. Soap, in very simple chemical terms, is the sodium salt of a fatty acid. Common table salt is not the only salt in the chemical world. There are many salts that are the result of an acid and a base (alkali) reacting together. Fatty acids are found in foods we call fats and oils. They can also be found in animal fat which is called tallow. Vegan soaps are made with fruit and vegetable fats and oils only. When you mix the fats and oils (acids) with a lye solution (base) you end up with soap.

 

Is it an Acid or a Base?

Acids are solutions that burn. However, acids can range from weak ones like acetic acid, the chief ingredient in vinegar, to hydrosulfuric acid, an extremely strong and dangerous acid in the battery of your car.

Bases (alkali) are solutions that corrode rather than burn. Think of an alkali battery on your car, which corrodes around the terminals. A base can be weak or strong. An example of a weak base is sodium bicarbonate or baking soda, used to settle an upset stomach caused by too much stomach acid. A strong base is sodium hydroxide, (lye), which is the chief ingredient in oven and drain cleaners. The lye converts the grease in the oven or drain into soap, so that you can wipe or flush it away.

 

A Chemical Reaction

Soap is not found in nature but can be created by simple processes. In this way it's similar to bread, wine, glass, cheese, and pottery, useful items produced by early civilizations most likely by accident and then by design.

Saponification is a very big chemical word for the rather complex but easy to create soap making reaction. Saponification is what happens when a fatty acid meets an alkali. When fats or oils, which contain fatty acids are mixed with a strong alkali, or lye and water, the lye first splits the fats or oils into their two major parts- fatty acids and glycerol. After this splitting of the fats or oils, the lye is split into sodium and hydroxide ions. The sodium ions react with the fatty acids to produce soap and the hydroxide ions react with glycerol to form glycerine. This combination becomes the sodium salt of the fatty acid, which is soap. The by product of this combination is a bar of soap that contains 40% glycerine! Now you know why all natural handmade soaps are so good for your skin.

 

Soap Making Takes Three Basic Steps.

1. Lye mixed in water, causing it to heat up.
2. Heating of fats or oils to liquify them.
3. Mixing the fats and lye solution together and pouring it into a mold. This then causes the chemical exchange of saponification to take place.


After the natural soap cures for 4 weeks, it's gentle and ready to use!