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The Art Of Making Soap - A History Of Soap Making

Below is a historical introduction to the art of soap making extracted from a book written in the late 1800's entitled "The Art Of Making Soap & Candles" ...

Soap, both hard and soft, as it is well known, is produced by the union of the fats and the alkalis; by hard soap, we mean such as have soda, and by soft soap is understood that which has potassa for its basis. Water alone will not remove oily substances from any surfaces to which they may adhere, but a solution of soap, being always more or less alkaline, though its constituents may be united in their number of equivalents, will, nevertheless, render the oil freely miscible with water, so that it can be easily erased.

A similar effect is produced by using a mixture of water and lixivious salts. The gall of animals and the juice of certain plants, also possess the property of removing dust and dirt, It does not, however, appear that gall was employed by the ancients, but it is certain that in washing they used saponaceous plants.

In the remotest times, it appears that clothes were cleaned by being rubbed or stamped upon in water without the addition of any substance whatever. We are told by Homer, that Nausicaa and her attendants, washed their garments by treading upon them in pits containing water. We find, however, at a later period, that mention is made of ashes and a lye of ashes, but it is so seldom noticed that their primary use cannot be ascertained.

Aristophanes and Plato mention a substance, "konia," which they say was employed for washing purposes, and Pollax leads us to infer that this " konia" was a lye of ashes. With this lye, oil and wine jars were cleansed, as well as the images of the gods.

The practice of decarbonizing alkaline lyes by means of lime, was, according to Beckmann, known at any rate in the time of Paulus Aegineta, but we are not led to suppose that the Romans were acquainted with the dry substance obtained by evaporation of the clear liquid.

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Recommended Resource:

The "Art Of Making Soaps And Candles" was written in the late 1800's by a leading expert at that time and also provides factual and productive information from some of the top manufacturers, inventors, chemists and established authors from the 1800's.

This publication deals not only with the manufacture of soaps and candles, but it also includes illustrations and critical explanations of the various manipulations and mechanical arrangements by which they are effected, thus compiling a condensed narrative full of information that had never been published previously.

Get it here: The Art Of Making Soap & Candles

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