Handmade Soap Ecstasy

The marketplace was ready for variety, and manufacturers soon complied. Companies such as Armour Soap Works (now the Dial corporation) and many others paved the way for the giant soap companies we know today: Colgate-Palmolive, Proctor and Gamble, Dial, Jergens, and Lever Brothers. Ivory, Lifebuoy, Camay, Zest, Tone, Safeguard, Caress, and other soap brand names became mass-marketed and common in the homes of most Americans.

In the mid-1970s a new era of deodorant soaps came into vogue with names like Irish Spring, Coast, and Shield. Then came specialty soaps such as Neutrogena, Basis, and Oil of Olay.

Ann Bramson published a book that may have begun the return of home soap making. The book was entitled "Soap: Making it, Enjoying it". People who are bored with mass-produced products have welcomed the arrival of small-scale soap crafters.

 

TRIVIA: Not until the seventh century did soapmakers appear in Spain and Italy where soap was made with goat fat and Beech tree ashes. During the same period, the French started using olive oil to make soap. Eventually, fragrances were introduced and specialized soaps for bathing, shaving, shampooing, and laundry began to appear. King Louis XIV of France apparently guillotined three soapmakers for making a bar that irritated his very sensitive Royal skin.

The English began making soap during the 12th century. In 1633 King Charles I granted a 14 year monopoly to the Society of Soapmakers of Westminster. In the reign of Elizabeth I, soap consumption in England was greater than in any other European country. It seems that Queen Bess set the fashion herself, for it was reported that the Queen took a bath every four weeks "whether it was necessary or not." Just as the soap industry was gaining momentum in England, it became the subject of a series of restrictions and crippling taxation. It was not until 1853 that Gladstone abolished the tax on soap.