Jennifer Stepanik - Homemade Soap Made Simple

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Copyright 2014 Jennifer Stepanik
All Rights Reserved

SmashwordsEdition, License Notes

This ebook islicensed for your personal enjoyment only. This ebook may not bere-sold or given away to other people. If you would like to sharethis book with another person, please purchase an additional copyfor each recipient. If youre reading this book and did notpurchase it, or it was not purchased for your use only, then pleasereturn to Smashwords.com and purchase your own copy. Thank you forrespecting the hard work of this author.

You onlyhave one body; pamper it with handmade soaps and youll reap therewards. Create and customise your own soaps and unleash yourcreativity in the process. Then spread the love and share withfamily and friends. To find out more about creating your own bodycare products and staying healthy, log on to http://spanation.com.au

Other books bythis author

Enjoy thisbook and want to learn more?

Jenniferhas also created Homemade Candles Made Simple and Homemade Sugar Scrubs MadeSimple

Disclaimer: I amnot a qualified herbalist or chemist. I do, however, have over 14years of skin care industry experience and 2 years of naturopathictraining. Otherwise I am self-educated on health and homemade bodycare products and want to share my knowledge.

While thegreatest care has been taken to provide accurate information inthis eBook, it should not replace your own research. All skin typesare different and I, Jennifer Stepanik, cannot be held responsiblefor any individual reaction.

You should notuse soaps on broken or damaged skin. This eBook is not intended tocure, treat or prevent any disease or illness. If you have apersistent skin complaint you should seek professional medicaladvice.

Lye, one of thekey ingredients in soap making, is incredibly caustic and can burnimmediately on contact. Extreme care and precautions should betaken when making soap to protect yourself and others around you.You should not leave lye unattended and always store it safely outof reach of children and pets. You should ensure that anyimplements are used only for soap making.

Homemade Soap Made Simple is intended for information purposesonly.

What is soap?

Soap is allabout chemical reactions. But dont worry, were not scientists sowe are going to break it down into simple terms soap is the saltwhich results from mixing an acid with an alkali.

The acid usedin soap-making tends to be a fatty acid, the type that you find infood and oils. The alkali was originally sourced from wood ash, butover time has been replaced with the industrially-made compound,sodium hydroxide.

Saponificationis the chemical name given to the process of making soap, andessentially means the reaction that happens when the acid (avegetable oil or animal fat) is mixed with a strong alkali (lye).The by-products of the process are soap and glycerine. Commercialsoap makers tend to siphon off this glycerine and sell it for usein personal care products, pharmaceuticals, chemical intermediates,and food processing, but natural soap makers leave it in, whichmeans that homemade soap is much more moisturising.

Soap moleculeswork by attaching to water on one end and grease on the other, sothat when the water washes the soap molecule away, it takes thegrease with it.

History of Soap Making

Early origins

Crude forms ofsoap, consisting of fats boiled with ashes, have been found inAncient Babylon excavations from around 2,800 B.C., but the mixturewould have been used to clean wool and cotton for textiles, ratherthan the body.

Just a fewhundred years later, in 2,500 B.C., the Sumerians noted on theirclay tablets that they used soap to remove grease from wool andcloth before dying, but their original mix was a simple slurry madeonly of ash and water the alkali in the ash reacted with thegrease (fatty acid) on the wool to create saponification. As longas there was grease and oil to be removed, the slurry worked well,but the Sumerians soon made the connection that a little grease inthe mix helped the cleaning solution and they too started to boilfats and oils directly into the alkali mix for a more powerfulsolution. In 2,200 B.C they even recorded a formula consisting ofwater, alkali and cassia oil.

Another earlyexample is seen in the Ebers Papyrus, a medical document fromcirca. 1,550 B.C., which shows that early Egyptians also mixedanimal and vegetable oils with alkaline salts to make somethingsimilar to soap.

The mostfamiliar reference, however, comes from the Romans after all,they did invent most modern civilisation as we know it. Their soapincluded the cleaning power of ammonia from rotting urine and waswidely used throughout the Roman Empire thankfully, still onlyfor clothes, not personal washing! In 600 A.D. soap making guildswere first set up and a few hundred years later the firstcommercial bars were being sold for a third of a dinar.

With thecollapse of the Roman Empire, the soap-making process virtuallyground to a halt and was not revived until the thirteenth centurythroughout Europe. Soap makers in Northern Europe continued to useanimal fat and wood ash to create a jelly-like cleaning substance,but given the ingredients and lack of refrigeration, the tallow oranimal fat often smelled quite vile.

Worse still,the Brits destroyed large areas of woodland to produce the ash,causing a winter fuel shortage, while soap made with tallowdepleted reserves which were needed for candles. As tallowshortages threatened to make the basic commodity of candles tooexpensive for the poor, the UK government taxed soap as a luxuryitem and the exorbitant prices charged could only be afforded bythe very rich.

Soap makingthrived in Southern Europe, on the other hand, and greatadvancements were made throughout Italy, France and Spain; townssuch as Castille and Marseilles became famous for their superiorquality soaps. The secret of these Mediterranean countries was touse high grade olive oil instead of animal fat, and barilla ash.This development is known as Castille Soap and created pleasantsmelling, naturally moisturising solid bars of soap, which could beshredded or moulded to form wash balls.

At the end ofthe eighteenth century, French chemists began to understand thesoap making process even better and helped make more significantadvancements in its manufacture. The industrial revolution in thenineteenth century moved soap production into factories where itblossomed: the economies of scale and UK tax repeals led to reducedprices; the science of soap introduced a softer version forpersonal use (not laundry); while advances in plumbing made bathinga normal part of life for all classes.

In 1890 fivemajor companies Colgate, Morse Taylor, Albert, Pears and Bailey offered different types of soap. During the First World War, theneed for cleaning agents to treat battlefield wounds led to thecreation of synthetic compounds to make soap, commonly known asdetergents. In 1933, the first synthetic household detergent wasintroduced by Procter and Gamble. P&G also refined a continuousprocess which decreased production time to one day, making it muchmore cost effective.

Little haschanged in the process of soap-making to modern time, and mostcheap soap bars found in supermarkets are actually syntheticdetergents. Fortunately there is a revival of traditional soapmaking processes to produce natural homemade soaps, full ofmoisturising goodness and free from harmful chemical additives.

Whats in a name?

A couple ofsources are credited with calling these early mixes of animal fatand ash soap: