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Soap
&
SoapMaking
Soap: What is it?
n.
1. A cleansing agent, manufactured in bars, granules, flakes, or liquid form, made from a mixture of the sodium salts of various fatty acids of natural oils and fats.
2. A metallic salt of a fatty acid, as of aluminum or iron.
Soap is fascinating stuff. It is actually a salt that foams! This crystalline nature of soap allows it to be made clear as glass when boiled in alcohol with sugars.
(Like Soapy Hollow Glycerin soaps.) A salt is what you get when you mix an acid and a base together. The acids and bases neutralize each other and a salt forms in the process.
Soap is made from acidic oils and an alkaline solution. Oil and alkali must be in balance to make the perfect bar of soap.
Where does alkali come from?
Once upon a time rainwater was filtered through hardwood ashes to make a Potassium Hydroxide solution. Bar soaps are made using Sodium Hydroxide. Sodium Hydroxide
(NaOH) is created by running electricity through salt water.
What's the history?
The earliest known evidence of soap use are Babylonian
clay cylinders dating from 2800 BC containing a soap-like substance. A formula
for soap consisting of water, alkali
and cassia oil
was written on a Babylonian clay tablet around 2200 BC.
The Ebers
papyrus (Egypt, 1550 BC) indicates that ancient
Egyptians bathed regularly and combined animal and vegetable oils with
alkaline salts to create a soap-like substance. Egyptian documents mention that
a soap-like substance was used in the preparation of wool
for weaving.
The word "soap" appears first in a European language in Pliny
the Elder's Historia
Naturalis, which discusses the manufacture of soap from tallow
and ashes, but the only use he mentions for it is as a pomade
for hair; he mentions rather disapprovingly that among the Gauls
and Germans men
are likelier to use it than women [1]
The Arabs made the soap from vegetable oil such as olive oil or some aromatic
oils such as thyme oil. Sodium Lye (Al-Soda Al-Kawia) NaOH was used for the
first time and the formula hasn't changed from the current soap sold in the
market. From the beginning of the 7th century soap was produced in Nablus
(Palestine), Kufa (Iraq) and Basra (Iraq).
Soaps, as we know them today, are descendants of historical Arabian Soaps.
Arabian Soap was perfumed and colored, some of the soaps were liquid and others
were hard. Al-Razi’s manuscript contains recipes for soap. A recently
discovered manuscript from the 13th century details more recipes for soap
making; e.g. take some sesame oil, a sprinkle of potash, alkali and some lime,
mix them all together and boil. When cooked, they are poured into molds and left
to set, leaving hard soap.
Historically, soap was made by mixing animal
fats with lye.
Because of the caustic
lye, this was a dangerous procedure (perhaps more dangerous than any present-day
home activities) which could result in serious chemical
burns or even blindness.
Before commercially-produced lye was commonplace, it was produced at home for
soap making from the ashes of a wood fire.
My first experience with soap making was in the mountains of North Carolina,
where I was taught how to tell when wood ashes had made water alkali enough to
use use as potassium hydroxide. (For the record, when a raw egg will float
to the top, the water is alkali enough. Note that you shouldn't eat that
egg. Just saying...)
Soapy Hollow soaps are made with zero animal products. All of our oils
are either organically sourced, or are from certified renewable sources.
Our primary oils include Olive, Rice Bran, Soy, Safflower, Cherry, Palm and Palm
Kernel. We often add cocoa butter, shea butter, jojoba and other enriching
oils after the saponification process, to create a super gentle and moisturizing
product.
What's the difference between soap and detergent?
Many people are confused about the difference between soap and detergent. Soaps and detergents are not the same thing, although both are surfactants, or surface active agents, which basically means a washing compound that mixes with grease and water.
Soaps are made of materials found in nature. Detergents are synthetic (although some of the ingredients
may be natural); they were developed during World War II when oils to make soap were scarce.
Detergents are significantly less expensive to manufacture, as many of the
ingredients are byproducts of the petroleum industry.
Can you teach me how?
Yes! Tutorials: Coming Soon!
See also:
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