Handmade Soap Greet the Day

Soap pellets are combined with fragrances and other materials and blended to homogeneity in an amalgamator (mixer). The mass is then discharged from the mixer into a refiner which, by means of an auger, forces the soap through a fine wire screen. From the refiner the soap passes over a roller mill (French milling or hard milling) in a manner similar to calendering paper or plastic or to making chocolate liquor. The soap is then passed through one or more additional refiners to further plasticize the soap mass. Immediately before extrusion it passes through a vacuum chamber to remove any entrapped air. It is then extruded into a long log or blank, cut to convenient lengths, passed through a metal detector and then stamped into shape in refrigerated tools. The pressed bars are packaged in many ways.

Sand or pumice may be added to produce a scouring soap. This process is most common in creating soaps used for human hygiene. The scouring agents serve to remove dead skin cells from the surface being cleaned. This process is called exfoliation. Many newer materials are used for exfoliating soaps which are effective but do not have the sharp edges and poor size distribution of pumice.

Although the word soap continues to be used informally in everyday speech and product labels, in practice nearly all kinds of "soap" in use today are actually synthetic detergents, which are less expensive, more effective, and easier to manufacture. While effort has been made to reduce their negative effect upon the environment, the results have been mixed.

Soaps are useful for cleansing because soap molecules attach readily to both nonpolar molecules (such as grease or oil) and polar molecules (such as water). Although grease will normally adhere to skin or clothing, the soap molecules can attach to it as a "handle" and make it easier to rinse away. Allowing soap to sit on any surface (skin, clothes etc) over time can imbalance the moisture content on it and result in the dissolving of fabrics and dryness of skin.

TRIVIA: A soap-like material found in clay cylinders during the excavation of ancient Babylon is evidence that soapmaking was known as early as 2800 B.C. Inscriptions on the cylinders say that fats were boiled with ashes, a soap-making method, but do not refer to the purpose of the "soap." Such materials were later used as hair styling aids.