Soap - from luxury to necessity

From the cradle to the grave, soap is a part of our daily lives, and yet something that is so commonplace today was a luxury item in the days before mass production, when all that was available was the handmade soap from local artisans.

From hand-made to mass production back to hand-made

The basic chemical process for making soaps has unchanged over the centuries. Oils and fats are taken from various sources, boiled with a caustic alkaline solution to produce a crude form of soap. This chemical reaction is called saponification.

Obviously the quality of the soap depends on the materials used. Hand made soaps on the early homesteads of the US were made using wood ash and animal fats. Salt was added at the end of the boiling process to produce hard soap bars which were then scented with lavender, wintergreen, or caraway.

In southern Europe, olive oil mixed with saltwort plant ash produced a very high quality white soap called Castile soap. However, in areas of northern Europe sometimes fish oil was used. While not the ultimate in body care for use as bath soaps, they were acceptable for laundry use. While they could rightly be called a natural soap, they were a far cry from the natural, luxury soaps available today.

By the late 19th century, with improved transport, soapmakers began to gain access to more luxurious ingredients in the form of exotic vegetable fats. West Africa provided them with the oil palm, which provided a brightly colored buttery substance that became a key ingredient in soaps and cosmetics. From the islands of the Pacific came the coconut palm from which coconut oil could be extracted.

Today's manufacture of soaps is divided into three stages - saponification, drying (which reduces the water content by over half) and finishing - this is when the perfume, color and shape of the soap is determined.

While there have been dramatic advances made in the chemistry of detergents, traditional soap is as popular today as it has ever been. And with the current trend for exotic bath and body care products, the handmade, luxury soaps that feature natural ingredients with fruit fragrances and herbal extracts, means there is still a long life ahead for the humble bar of soap.