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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" ...

Pliny speaks, among others, of a plant growing on a rocky soil and on the mountains, with prickly and rough leaves. Fuchs was of the opinion that it must have been the soap-wort, still used in Italy and France. Others imagine that it was the Gypsophila Struthium, of Linne', a plant with a tender stem and leaves like those of the olive tree; but Beckmann places no confidence in any of these surmises, but rather favors the idea that it was a plant growing in Syria. Beanmeal was also employed for cleansing purposes.

Large quantities of fullers' earth (silicate of alumina), at the same time were moreover used, and clothes, dressed with this earth, were stamped upon by the feet, a process by which grease is partly absorbed and partly scoured off.

The poor at Rome, moreover, rubbed it over their clothes at festivals, in order that they might appear brighter. Some of these earths were employed in the baths instead of nitrum, and De la Valle, who traveled through the Levant at the beginning of the last century, states that the practice was still in vogue and adopted by persons of the highest distinction; they, in fact, never bathing without it.

It has, furthermore, been authentically established, that in the eighth century there were numerous soap factories in Italy and Spain, but it was not till the close of the twelfth and commencement of the thirteenth century that this branch of business was gradually introduced into France.

The first factories were founded in Marseilles, an old colony of the Phenicians, a race half Grecian, half Egyptian, energetic, intelligent, active, particularly partial to industrial arts and commercial enterprises. This ancient city was, as it were, the cradle of soap manufacturing.

Here all the crude materials for this purpose were abundant. The fecundity of its soil gave rise to the olive tree of the Orient, as well as to the vegetable sodas, whilst its harbor in the Mediterranean peculiarly favored and hastened the prosperity of the soap manufacturers and traders. There has, indeed, been gradually a considerable increase in the demand for soap, attributable mainly to the method of bleaching linen, first adopted in the seventeenth century, at which time this new branch of manufacture was imported from the West Indies, and the important application of the chlorine for bleaching textile fabrics had not been discovered.

Notwithstanding the richness of its soil, and its natural resources, Marseilles, nevertheless, could not furnish the crude materials in quantities sufficient to supply the wants of her soap manufacturers, and consequently, ere long, became tributary to Spain and Italy, to the former for the oils and vegetable sodas; to the latter for the oils only.

From France, the art of manufacturing soap was introduced into England at an unknown epoch prior to the year 1500. Soap, for a long time, was there made partly according to the French method, viz., with sodas obtained from the incineration of seashore plants, and partly after the German plan with potash and salt, which plan is still followed by some old-fashioned soap makers. Almost all kinds of soap were thus manufactured in England, whilst in France the olive oil soap only was produced.

About the first decennium of the present century, however, palm oil and cocoa oil soaps have been made in Paris, where also the art of manufacturing toilet soaps has scarcely been superseded by either English or American manufacturers.

Soap Recipe#5: Vanilla Cream Soap 2 oz. clear melt & pour soap 1 oz. white melt & pour soap ½ tsp. powdered milk 6 drops vanilla cream fragrance oil Follow basic instructions for melt & pour soaps. ***** Soap Recipe #6: Gardener’s Soap 8 oz. white soap, grated ¼ cup milk 2 tsp. shredded luffa ¼ tsp. lavender fragrance oil 1/8 tsp. rosemary fragrance oil Follow basic instructions for melt & pour soaps. Source: "Soap Recipes: 58 Recipes For Cold & Hot Process Soaps"

The article "The Art Of Making Soap - A History Of Soap Making" continues on the next page ...

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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