Did you know that soap making is an ancient art, and some recipes date back to around 4000 BC. Early soaps were adequate as cleansers, but were very harsh on the skin.

Soaps are emulsifying agents that allow the dispersion of an insoluble substance, like body oils, within water. Most soaps are alkaline, and unless pH balanced, can cause skin irritation when used on a daily basis. Antibacterial agents are often added to soaps and may decrease body odor by inhibiting bacterial action on sweat.

Mildness, biodegradability, cleansing ability, moisturization, feel and lubrication are all important aspects of soap performance. Some modern surfactants in soaps and shampoos cause skin irritation by depleting natural fats and lipids in the skin. Soaps destroy the lipid covering of the skin and alter the skin pH. Essential oils and herbal extracts are sometimes added to soaps to soothe the skin and restore moisture.

Vegetable oils such as coconut, palm and olive oils are used as basic ingredients of more costly soaps. Often vitamins, such as E and C, minerals and antioxidants are added to soap recipes. Specialty soaps may include ingredients from botanical sources to provide gentle cleansing and a pleasant aroma.

Many major soap manufacturers remove the naturally occurring glycerin from soap. But glycerin is a humectants, meaning it attracts moisture to your skin. So using soap containing glycerin helps keep your skin soft and moist and does not promote skin dryness.
 

Where did Soap come from?

There are many stories about how soap was "invented," but soap has probably been used in some form or another as far back as prehistoric times, .....but not quite in the same form as we know it today...... 

In early times as well as now, a soap-like substance was/can be extracted from plants such as soapwort, soap root, soap bark, yucca, horsetail, fuchsia leaves, bouncing bet, and the agaves.....plants such as these were/are often found flourishing on riverbanks or near lakes.

As far back as 2500 B.C., clay tablets from near the Tigris and Euphrates Rivers (today known as southern Iraq) were found that make mention of the use of soap.  It's use for washing did not necessarily come first. It was first used as a way to dress one's hair, or as a medicament on wounds.

In ancient Rome, oils, unguents, plant essences, and cosmetics were used liberally, but no reference was made to soap as a cleaning agent.  However an implement called a "strigil" was used to scrape off oils used to anoint bodies, and off with this scraping came some dirt.

Cleopatra used (mare's) milk, honey, and essential oils in her bathing rites, but no soap.  Her cleansing agent was fine white sand which caused her to come-clean by abrasion.

Clay tablets dating to 2200 B.C. refer to a soap mixture of water, alkali, and scented oils.

"Wise Women".. often considered to be witches in Medieval times, used their secrets for turning oils and herbs into beneficial skin preparations. 

The volcano, Mt. Vesuvius, erupted over the city of Pompeii, Italy in 79 A.D.  Upon excavation of the city, an entire soap making factory was revealed, including bars of soap preserved in the hardened lava.

An ancient Roman legend is where soap got it's name from.  On Mount Sapo, animals were sacrificed. Rain water washed down the mountain through this mixture of melted animal fats and wood ashes into the Tiber River below.  Women doing their wash at the river noticed clothes coming cleaner that were exposed to this soapy mixture of saponified acid (fats) and alkali (caustic ashes). 

However no doubt, this same mixture could have occurred any time since humans began cooking meat over fires, invariably dripping fat into ash, and a soapy substance could have bubbled up in rain or spilled water.

Roman baths were built around 312 B.C. and were quite popular, although not widespread.  They went into decline after the fall of the Roman Empire. 

It is believed that  many of the terrible health plagues suffered during the Middle Ages were the result of a lack of good hygiene!

The Arabs, Turks, Greeks, Celts, and Vikings all learned of soap making and introduced it to countries they conquered, and therefore soap making spread....but bathing was more a relaxing pastime or social duty than for cleansing purposes. 

Marseilles emerged as a great soap making center, followed by Genoa, Venice, Bari and Castilla.   All had a rich and plentiful supply of olive oil and barilla, a fleshy plant whose ashes were used to make the lye formula used in soap making at the time.

Soap making trade associations came into existence, and training in soap making was highly regulated.   Secrets of the trade were carefully guarded then, as now.

In 1399, England's Henry IV instituted the Order of the Bath.....ordering his noblemen to venture into a water-filled tub at least once in their lives during knighthood. 

Queen Elizabeth bathed every three months "whether she needed to or not," and was known as a sophisticated woman!  Perfume was generally used to hide offending odors.  Water was considered a strange, magical fluid, only trusted if applied by a physician, and that if used incorrectly, could cause sickness or worse.  Soon, more doctors prescribed "the water cure," and people found they enjoyed it!

England and France recognized the profitability of soap as it gained popularity and imposed a high tax on it, making it difficult to attain for any other than the rich or royal. 

A French chemist, Nicolas LeBlanc, found a way to make lye from salt, a far easier and less expensive way to make soap.  In 1852, the soap tax in England and France was abolished making it easier to make soap a household commodity for personal hygiene as well as for washing clothes.

With advances in indoor plumbing, and hot and cold running water, soap soon made it's way into all homes.

Some of the earliest soap companies were England's Pears, Yardley, and Lever Brothers companies. Early American settlers made soap themselves, saving up cooking grease and animal fat all year long for one big soap making day each year.  However primitive soap making such as this was so imprecise as to produce imprecise results...and how soap earned the negativity associated with "lye soap."

In 1806, William Colgate opened Colgate & Company in New York, buying a giant kettle to make 45,000 lb. soap batches in, becoming the first big soap company here in America.  He was followed by William Proctor and James Gamble, who had an employee that left for lunch one day, and left the soap mixing machine on, beating air into the soap batch....unintentionally creating the world's first "floating soap," Ivory.   Harley Procter, son of the original Proctor was inspired with "Ivory's" name one day while sitting in church, he heard the forty-fifth psalm - "All thy garments smell of myrrh, and aloes, and cassia, out of the ivory palaces, where they have made thee glad"

Out in the west, B. J. Johnson Company was making soap entirely of vegetable oils, palm and olive.   The soap they produced became so popular, they renamed their company after the soap Palmolive...although today's Palmolive soap recipe is not the same soap as the original....it now, like most commercial soaps, contains primarily animal fat.

England's Lever Brothers sent over some of their staff to start soap making here in America and developed Lifebuoy, which was initially sold as an antiseptic soap, but it's formulation was changed when it did not sell well.  Along with Lifebuoy, the term "B.O." (body odor) was coined.  Advertising came into vogue and the threat of the much-dreaded and socially unacceptable B.O. made an excellent selling tool for soap makers!  And hence...soap making companies were off and running in America!

During World War I, vegetable oils were hard to find so there was a need to find another way to make soap.   Synthetic detergents were born and revolutionized the soap making industry --not necessarily for the better, but it was a cheaper way to produce soap, and why low commercial soap prices are the yardstick most people judge soaps by still today.      Cheaper...but not necessarily better.

Currently, only a small percentage of the industry uses age-old methods for making soap.  Standard grocery store soap recipes are comprised of approximately 80% tallow (animal fat) and 20% coconut oil, with added chemical sudsing agents. 

There was a time when a bar of soap was considered a luxury and was even exchanged among world leaders as a gift of great favor and goodwill!   

Glycerin is a natural byproduct of the soap making process. It is a humectants, which means it attracts moisture to your skin. Many major soap manufacturers remove the glycerin from their soaps to use in more expensive products, like creams and lotions. By using soaps containing glycerin, your skin will remain softer and not dry out.

Glycerin is a sweet-tasting colorless thick liquid. Glycerin can be dissolved in water or alcohol, but not oils. But many things can be dissolved into glycerin, so it is a good solvent. glycerin absorbs water from the air. So 100% pure glycerin placed on the skin would be dehydrating, but when mixed with water, glycerin softens the skin. Some people say this softening is the result of the glycerin attracting moisture to your skin. But others say the glycerin has some other properties which are helpful to the skin. But either way, the bottom line is that glycerin does soften the skin.

The process of removing glycerin from soap is a complicated procedure, and before 1889 no one knew how to remove the glycerin from soap. At that time, soap making became a lot more profitable, because the large soap manufacturers removed the glycerin to sell for use in making nitroglycerin, which was used to make dynamite. Soap is made from fats and lye. The fats contain glycerin as part of their makeup. When the fats and lye interact, soap is formed.

A cold process soap maker simply pours the soap into molds at this stage, but a commercial soap maker will add salt. The salt causes the soap to curdle and float to the top. After skimming off the soap, they have glycerin left over.

Glycerin is also used to make clear soaps. Highly glycerinated clear soaps contain about 15% - 20% pure glycerin. Because of their high glycerin content, these soaps are very moisturizing to the skin. You may notice that when a bar of soap with lots of glycerin is left exposed to air, it will attract moisture and "glisten" with beads of ambient moisture.

The glycerin soaps that we sell are cold-processed soaps that contain natural vegetable glycerin and are highly moisturizing. The emollient, skin loving and gentle nature of these soaps is especially good for tender or dry skin and children.