Origin of Soap

There is a legend according to which the name " soap " comes from the Italian word "sapone" which in turn comes from Monte Sapo, one of the hills of Rome in which ritual sacrifices of animals were practiced. The rain dragged the animal fat along with the ashes of the sacrifice to the Tiber river, and it was the local women who observed that those residues improved the washing of clothes.

Did you know that the use of underwear was not available to the middle and lower classes until 1799, only a couple of centuries ago? 

And that was thanks to the great contribution made by the British chemist Charles Tennant, who by the reaction of chlorine gas with slaked lime, obtained a powder - the so-called "whitening powder" - which served to whiten cotton, a cheap fabric scope of any, widespread use of underwear, which forced the soap industry to multiply to be able to wash all the textiles that began to occur at the end of the eighteenth century?

The origin of soap, defined today as the alkaline salt of a fatty acid , is undoubtedly long before the Christian era: going back to the ancient Sumerian civilization, we find the first allusion in some tablets found in Mesopotamia, year 3,000 BC Later, an Egyptian papyrus of 1,500 a. C. qualified as an "authentic medical treatment" , refers to the use of a certain soapy substance used for the washing of linen and cotton, and as a treatment for skin diseases.

But it was the Romans who made the soap making a real craft, making it an everyday item, both for hygiene and to prevent disease. After the fall of the Roman Empire in 467 AD, the use of soap decreases almost completely due to the disappearance of public baths, by express prohibition of the Church, and the consequent disinterest in personal hygiene.

It is already in the seventh century when the manufacture of soap arises and soap guilds begin to occur throughout Europe (France, Italy, Spain, etc.), but it becomes a luxury item , being subject to Monopolies Real taxes on the product with taxes too high, so they are only available to the upper classes. 
In the tenth century, Europe suffered a great depopulation and plagues and epidemics raised the rate of adult and child mortality. At that time its manufacture in Spain, was done in the "Almonas ", only with the authorization of the reigning monarch. The most famous of these almonas was that of Triana (Seville) , which worked for 400 years, and in which the acquaintance was madeCastilla soap . 
From the 9th century, Marseille was the center of the soapmaking business, and later, in the 14th century, it went to Venice. It is curious to note that in the fourteenth and eighteenth centuries the monarchs of the Old Continent reserved the privilege of granting a license to build and exploit soaps.

As of 1789 the real monopolies disappear, date that coincides with the revolutionary invention of Leblanc to manufacture the sodium carbonate , with which the artisans could manufacture the sodium soap on an industrial scale through the caustic soda, and not from ashes as it had been done until then. 
It was these events that gave rise to a true soap industry, which spread to all European countries. The product was ostensibly cheapened and its use was generalized to all social classes. In this way, diseases of the skin began to disappear, and especially its contagion, which particularly affected childhood.
All this, together with the use of underwear, was what led to the affirmation at the time of a momentous event: thanks to the use of soap and its impact on hygiene, it became possible the growth of the population of Europe, due to the decrease in the causes of mortality . Consequently, in the nineteenth century the population in Europe tripled and life expectancy went from 30 to 50 years, only and exclusively for the use of soap.

It can therefore be said that the birth of the soap industry was as important to society as was the steam engine in the Industrial Revolution.