All about Soap

If you are as enthusiastic about soap as a regular Tyler Durden, then you have come to the right place. Here at coalpot-soaps.com you can learn more things about soap and other related products such as creams, oils, ointments, bath salts and candles than you ever though possible. We all know soap, and hopefully, we all use it for washing and bathing, but do we really know where it comes from, or how it is made? If you have ever asked yourself those questions or others, then keep reading and find the answers you were looking for.

History of Soap

Soap dates back to at least the year 2800 BC in Ancient Babylon. A concoction composed of ashes, oil and sesame was described as used 'for washing the stones for the servant girls.' Furthermore, the Ebers papyrus reveals that ancient Egyptians bathed often with a substance made with animal and vegetable oils and alkaline salts. Soap was also mentioned by several ancient physicians and naturalists like Pliny the Elder, Aretaeus of Cappadocia, Zosimos of Panopolis and Galen. In the late sixth century there was a soap-making guild in Naples, and soap-making was widely known in Italy and Spain by the eighth century. Muslim chemists were the first to produce perfumed and colored soap, both liquid and solid, made with aromatic oils. It was until the second half of the 15th century however, that professional manufacturing started to become industrialized, with Toulon, Hyeres and Marseille supplying the rest of France. In the following century, finer soaps were produced in Europe with vegetable oils like olive oil instead of animal fats. Finally, the Industrial Revolution signaled of mass production in both Europe and America. Today, the use of soap is generalized and a requisite to proper personal hygiene and its relationship with health.

Soap Making Process

There are two main methods of making soap, the hot process and the cold process, with the latter being the more commonly used nowadays. In the hot process, fat and lye are boiled together at a temperature of 80 to 200 degrees Celsius until saponification takes place. Saponification is a chemical reaction that takes place when a vegetable oil or an animal fat is mixed with an alkali (a type of salt). In the cold process, on the other hand, lye is dissolved in water, while the oils are heated or melted. Both materials can be mixed once they have cooled to around 100 degrees Fahrenheit and are no more than 10 degrees Fahrenheit. The blend is then stirred until it reaches a certain level of viscosity, before which essential oils, fragrance oils, botanicals, herbs and oatmeals may be added. The resulting batch is poured into molds, where saponification is continued for anywhere between 18 to 48 hours. The next to the last step of the process is purification, which is has to do with removing sodium hydroxide, glycerol and water. The dry soap is compacted into pellets, which are ready for the last step, soap finishing, or converting the raw pellets into commercial products like bars.