The history of soap

The Babylonians used ash and oil. The Gauls used ash and tallow. The Vikings used ash and tallow. Aleppo used […]

Remember al-Razi. The Persian scholar who, in the year 925, described how glycerin is released from olive oil during the

The war rationed fat away from soap. The synthetic substitute took over the market in seven years. In 1913 the

Humans had been making soap for 4,000 years. In 1816 we finally knew what the reaction was. In 1791 the

In 1712, Queen Anne introduced a soap tax in England. It tripled the price of soap. Soap became a luxury

In 1347 the plague hit Europe. Thirty to fifty percent of the population died. Doctors needed explanations, and they gave

In Old Norse, Saturday was called laugardagr. Laug means “bath” or “warm water.” Dagr means day. So Saturday literally means

Aleppo, Castile, Marseille, Nablus — the Mediterranean turned soap into a regional art. While Northern Europe washed on Saturdays, the

The Romans had a high bathing culture. They just didn’t have soap. It’s one of history’s funny points. The Romans,

The oldest written soap recipe was scratched into clay 2,800 years before Christ. 2,800 years before Christ. Between the Tigris