Soapmaking
Soap is a surfactant, which acts as a link between water and dirt particles, decreasing surface tension in order to attract away dirt. Its beginning can be traced as far back as 2500 BC, where it is mentioned on Sumerian clay tablets, describing the use of soap to wash wool. Before that, plants with surfactant properties, such as yucca, soapwort, and horsetail, were used for bathing, and washing laundry. During the Roman Era, bathing was considered popular, even luxurious, a pastime whose popularity coincided with the building of the Roman baths in 467 AD. However, with the downfall of the Roman Empire, so came a decline in bathing. During the Medieval period, bathing was considered quite ...
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tax in 1853 that soap became economically available to the average person, and cleanliness took a turn, once again, towards popularity.
In Colonial America, during that period, the women made soap for their families. Commercial production of soap did not materialize until 1608, when several enterprising European soapcrafters arrived in America. Numerous advancements in took place over the next several centuries, including a process for the inexpensive production of soda ash (lye), and a process to mass produce large quantities of soap by a continuous production technique, making commercial soap production a prosperous industry. However, prior to commercial soap production, or for families in outlying areas, women would make all the soap their family would use for the entire year, in one or two large batches.
corresponded well with the puritan attitudes of the early settlers, both in their desire for cleanliness, and in their aspirations to use their resources to the fullest. In ...
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Soapmaking. (2007, April 11). Retrieved May 1, 2024, from http://www.essayworld.com/essays/Soapmaking/63177
"Soapmaking." Essayworld.com. Essayworld.com, 11 Apr. 2007. Web. 1 May. 2024. <http://www.essayworld.com/essays/Soapmaking/63177>
"Soapmaking." Essayworld.com. April 11, 2007. Accessed May 1, 2024. http://www.essayworld.com/essays/Soapmaking/63177.
"Soapmaking." Essayworld.com. April 11, 2007. Accessed May 1, 2024. http://www.essayworld.com/essays/Soapmaking/63177.
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