Soap has come a long way, throughout many centuries, before becoming known for its benefits. Here is a brief history of its winding path:
• Legend has it that the word “soap” comes from the place called “Mountain Sapo” from ancient Rome, where the fat from animal sacrifices mixed with ashes and flowed down river when it rained. Women washing clothes in the river Tiber noticed that this mix was a much better cleaner that just soaking.
• Soap was invented in the year 600 BC by the Phoenicians, by mixing goat fat with ashes from burnt wood. Phoenician traders brought soap to the Greeks and the Romans.
• From the ancient civilizations, Romans and Egyptians were the ones that paid the most attention to personal hygiene. For the Egyptians this went as far as becoming a religious obligation, as a unclean body meant disrespect to the gods, even if the spirit was clean. They used soaps made of a mixture of clay and ashes and in order to have a pleasant smell, they used scented oils. Herodotus said that the Egyptians paid more interest to personal hygiene than to physical appearance. The Romans, builders of the famous Roman baths received the soap with great delight.
• Over time, out of ignorance, religious considerations and other reasons, soap usage became very controversial. Bathing was considered dangerous for the health.
• In the year 1549, when the Duchess of Julich, Germany was offered a box of soap, she felt deeply offended and, in an act of rage, threw out the person who brought her the gift.
• Soap began to be manufactured and used throughout Europe at the beginning of the first millennium, but it was considered a luxury even at that time. The first manufacturers started in Marseille, France and Savona, Italy but addressed their products only to the elite.
• While soap became more and more affordable, people’s attitude towards cleanliness changed as well, along with a better understanding of its role in eliminating pathogenic microorganisms. It was not until the late 19th century and early 20th century that cleanliness became important, with personal hygiene responsible for a healthy body as well as a healthy mind, and soap becoming universally known.
• The First World War showed a dramatic increase in soap demand that manufacturers could not cover. It was at this time that companies began mass producing detergents from petroleum-based products. These are the soaps that we find in stores today.
• Promotional campaigns throughout Europe and the United States were responsible for acknowledgement on a large scale of the close relationship between cleanliness and health. Starting with the 1950s, soap was considered an indispensable personal hygiene product.
• Baron Justus von Liebig, a German chemist, stated that the wealth and degree of civilization of a people can be determined by the amount of soap they use!
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