SOAP & DETERGENT CHEMICALS

Soap has been known for at least 2,300 years. According to Pliny the Elder, the Phoenicians prepared it from goat’s tallow and wood ashes in 600 BCE and sometimes used it as an article of barter with the Gauls. Soap was widely known in the Roman Empire; whether the Romans learned its use and manufacture from ancient Mediterranean peoples or from the Celts, inhabitants of Britannia, is not known

In Europe, soap production in the Middle Ages centred first at Marseilles, later at Genoa, then at Venice. Although some soap manufacture developed in Germany, the substance was so little used in central Europe that a box of soap presented to the Duchess of Juelich in 1549 caused a sensation. As late as 1672, when a German, A. Leo, sent Lady von Schleinitz a parcel containing soap from Italy, he accompanied it with a detailed description of how to use the mysterious product.

Early soapmakers probably used ashes and animal fats. Simple wood or plant ashes containing potassium carbonate were dispersed in water, and fat was added to the solution.