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Soap Naturally
Patrizia's research on the true history of soap making
A Short History of Soap, from Babylon to the Industrial Revolution
The origins of soap go back such a long time, that it's practically impossible to pin down to a certain time the exact circumstances in which it was first developed.
In the very early stages of human history, soap made from animal fats and potash (the water in which wood ashes were macerated) was mainly used to clean fleece and fabrics. Several archeological findings show that Babylonians, Egyptians and Phoenicians were already using something very similar to soap to prepare raw wool for dyeing, but the first written mention of how soap was made and used in ancient times comes from one of the most important Western historians, Gaius Plinius Secundus (Plinius the Elder). Talking about the inhabitants of Gallia, the Celts, Plinius narrates of a product, made by mixing goat's fat and potash from birch ashes, which was used to ligthen the colour of their hair and make it stiffer (sounds like hair gel is as old as soap, then! :-)
And apparently, the Celts themselves are responsible for teaching the Romans, who preferred to use oils mixed with fine sand or aromatic herbs to clean and massage their skin, how to use soap for personal cleaning. The meaning of the Late Latin word "sapo", indeed, was "a mixture of tallow and ashes used to discolour hair, of Celtic or Germanic origin".
It seems therefore it is only a legend, the story that goes around about the word "soap" (from the Late Latin "sapo") deriving from the name of a hill not far from Rome, a not better identified Mount Sapo or Mount Sappo, where the Romans used to sacrifice animals to their gods. As the legend goes, the animal fat, dripping from the altars, would combine with the ashes emptied from the braziers and turn into a soapy substance that, as washerwomen soon discovered, was particularly good to clean clothes.
Small scale soap production didn't start until the Middle Ages, when, in the 1200's, the first manufacturing factories were set up in France and in England, still using animal fat as the main ingredient. In the Mediterranean regions of France, a new process was soon developed, where the soap mixture is cooked and olive oil is used instead (or in addition) to animal fats. However, soap as a common product for personal cleaning was still vastly unknown. In the Late Middle Ages, hygienic conditions have drastically degenerated, favouring the spread of lethal epidemic diseases, such as the Black Plague, which decimated the European population around the middle 1300's. Even during the Renaissance, royalty and courtesans still choose to perfume and grease their bodies with strongly smelling balms, rather than allowing themselves the "sinful" luxury of a hot bath.
It is to be noted that, back then, soap was a very different product to what we use these days, its main problem being the insufficient purity of the alkaline component the fats were reacted with. Obtaining potash (potassium carbonate) from macerating wood or seaweed ashes in water, was a long and complicated process, which didn't always give consistent results. The caustic substance thus obtained had inconsistent concentration levels, which fatally affected the results of saponification.
For this reason, the single most important step in soapmaking history is the discovery, made just a few years before the French Revolution by the French chemist Nicolas Leblanc (1742-1806), of a reliably consistent method for producing soda from Glauber's salt - sodium sulfate, made from common salt (sodium chloride, NaCl) and sulphuric acid (H2SO4) - and calcinated limestone and coal. Leblanc's process was substantially correct, but not free from unwanted side effects. This method would in fact leave behind huge amounts of highly toxic byproducts, which were very difficult to dispose of.
The problem was eventually solved by the Belgian chemist Ernest Solvay (1836-1922), who, starting from the method defined by Leblanc, developed a process where sodium hydroxide (caustic soda, chemical formula NaOH) is extracted by hydrolisis from water and salt (or simple seawater), which allows to utilise all the byproducts of the chemical reaction. His invention, Soda Solvay, was industrially trademarked and opened the way to modern soap production.
Translated with permission from Patrizia Garzena's "Breve storia del sapone, dai babilonesi alla rivoluzione industriale", © copyright 2002 Patrizia Garzena
English version: Marina Tadiello
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