Handmade Soap Secret

Commercial soap making in the American colonies began in 1608 with the arrival of several soap makers on the second ship from England to reach Jamestown, VA. However, for many years, soap making stayed essentially a household chore. Eventually, professional soap makers began regularly collecting waste fats from households, in exchange for some soap.

A major step toward large-scale commercial soap making occurred in 1791 when a French chemist, Nicholas Leblanc, patented a process for making soda ash, or sodium carbonate, from common salt. Soda ash is the alkali obtained from ashes that combines with fat to form soap. The Leblanc process yielded quantities of good quality, inexpensive soda ash.

The science of modern soap making was bom some 20 years later with the discovery by Michel Eugene Chevreul, another French chemist, of the chemical nature and relationship of fats, glycerine and fatty acids. His studies established the basis for both fat and soap chemistry.

Also important to the advancement of soap technology was the mid-1800s invention by the Belgian chemist, Ernest Solvay, of the ammonia process, which also used common table salt, or sodium chloride, to make soda ash. Solvay's process further reduced the cost of obtaining this alkali, and increased both the quality and quantity of the soda ash available for manufacturing soap.

These scientific discoveries, together with the development of power to operate factories, made soap making one of America's fastest-growing industries by 1850. At the same time, its broad availability changed soap from a luxury item to an everyday necessity. With this widespread use came the development of milder soaps for bathing and soaps for use in the washing machines that were available to consumers by the turn of the century.

TRIVIA:  It wasn't until the 18th century that bathing and soap came into fashion. In 1791, the French chemist Nicolas Leblanc discovered how to extract soda from common salt, a major step in the commercial manufacture of soap. Around the same time, Louis Pasteur proclaimed that good personal hygiene would reduce the spread of diseases which increased the use of soap in medical facilities and eventually helped spread the use of soap into homes.