The Short A,B,C’s of Soap Making History
Who figured out soap and how to make it? Well, the Romans (Celtics, too) claim to have discovered the method to soap making. The Roman legend says soap was first discovered by women washing clothes along the Tiber River at the bottom of Sapo Hill. The women noticed the clothes became cleaner with far less effort at that particular location. What was happening? The ashes and the grease of animals from the sacrificial fires of the temples situated on the top of Sapo Hill mixed with the rain, making soap which ran down the slope in the streams of rain water giving the women a wash day bonus. You can see at a glance saponification, the chemical name for the soap making reaction, bears the name of that hill in Rome long ago, which caused one Roman washer women to comment to another, "My wash is cleaner than yours".
The European Dark Ages
After the fall of the Roman Empire in Western Europe, there was little soap making done and not much bathing as we know it. 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, and lard, the fat from swine were the chief fats used. Northern European soap makers even resorted to making soap from fish oils. Soaps made from the poor quality animals fats and oils, while adequate for laundry and textile usage, were not desirable for bathing and washing. The soap from southern Europe with their olive oils was superior. This resulted in a lively trade of exporting fine soaps from southern Europe.
You’ve got to question the people in the Middle Ages and their bathing habits – or lack thereof. They did bathe! There were public bath houses, called stews, where the patrons bathe 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 Plague. 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. Whew!!!!
Soap, however, did remain a useful item for cleaning and washing clothes. Soap also was still used for personal washing but 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 maybe bathing the whole body was out of fashion keeping you and your surroundings clean was not.
Soap in the American Colonies
When settlement begins in the Colonies, the Colonist brought an ample supply of soap with them. Manifests from cargo ships record cargos of firkins containing soap. (A firkin is an old measurement which was a wooden, hooped barrel of about nine gallon capacity.) After the colonists were settled and had been able to survive the first years of hardships, they found it more advantageous to make soap themselves using the copious amount of wood ashes, a natural result of their homesteading activities. With also a plentiful supply of animal fat from the butchering of the animals they used for food, the colonists had on hand all the ingredients for soap making. They did not have to rely on waiting for soap to be shipped from England and waste their goods or few pieces of currency in trade for soap.
Soap with some work and luck could be made for free. Soap making was performed as a yearly or semiannual event on the homesteads of the early settlers. As the butchering of animals took place in the fall, soap was made at that time on many homesteads and farms to utilize the large supply of tallow and lard 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.
Soft and Hard Soap
Soap made with wood ash lye does not make a hard soap but only a soft soap. When the fire was put out and the soap mixture was allowed to cool, the next day revealed a brown jelly like substance that felt slippery to the touch, made foam when mixed with water, and cleaned. This is the soft soap the colonists had done all their hard work to produce. The soft soap was then poured into a wooden barrel and ladled out with a wooden dipper when needed.
To make hard soap, common salt was thrown in at the end of the boiling. If this was done a hard cake of soap formed in a layer at the top of the pot. As common salt was expensive and hard to get, it was not usually wasted to make hard soap. Common salt was more valuable to give to the livestock and the preserving of foods. Soft soap worked just as well as hard and for these reasons the colonists, making their own soap, did not make hard soap bars.
In towns and cities where there were soap makers making soap for sale, the soap would be converted to the hard soap by the addition of salt. As hard bars it would be easier to store and transport. Hard bars produced by the soap maker were often scented with oils such as lavender, wintergreen, or caraway and were sold as toilet soap to persons living in the cities or towns.
Hard soap was not cut into small bars and wrapped as soap is sold today. Soap made by the soap makers was poured into large wooden frames and removed when cooled and hard.
To quote an old saying “…we’ve come a long way baby” is putting it mildly. The whole business of soap making became much easier and thus soap became more available to more people. The natural result being more and more people took to using soap, particularly the toilet soaps. The habit of bathing came back into fashion and the consumption of soap increased tremendously in the 19th century. Soap became of age in the Victorian times and the soap making industry turned from part craft and mystery to a fully developed industry.
Today, most “soapers” don’t use wood ash to create their lye water and they don’t render fats from animal slaughter. Natural “soapers” purchase lye from a store and use vegetable based oils. They add no chemicals, no preservatives or non-natural additives or colorings. What we’re able to produce is a skin loving bar of soap. Different types of oils offer different properties to the soap. I believe that if you cannot pronounce the word or know what it is- don’t use it. Take a field trip to your local grocery or drug store. Read the ingredients of the “SOAP” bar you normally buy. Ask yourself 3 questions:
- Does the label advertise soap? More likely, it’s a moisturizing, cleansing or deodorant bar.
- Read the ingredients- can you pronounce them and do you know what they are?
- Could you buy all the ingredients listed in the grocery store?
