History of soap

What a windy and rainy day. But a little bad weather wasn't enough to discourage Anuak. Today she was allowed for the first time to simmer her own talc and she was already looking forward to this new challenge. So far, Anuak has only been allowed to watch her mother making talc, but today was her day.
As she went through all the steps in her mind once again, she began to gather fresh twigs for the fire. The fireplace in the house was reserved for the water for washing clothes, so the small fire pit in front of the house had to do.

Anuak lit the fire and put the small pot of tallow on it. As if in a trance, she repeatedly stirred the sebum as out of the corner of her eye she spied a lamb that seemed to have come free from the herd.
The short time it would take to catch the lamb, the pot could stay alone on the fire and so Anuak went to catch the lamb. However, the lamb had other plans and so capturing it proved much more difficult than Anuak initially thought.
In the meantime, the wind picked up and it started to rain. When Anuak returned to the hearth after about an hour, she was terribly frightened. The wind had blown the white ash into the pot and the rain had filled the pot with water.
She hurriedly moved everything in the hope that it would not be noticed. But the mass in the pot turned into ugly brown-gray. Sadly she went with the potty to her mother. With tears in her eyes, she overlooked the stone in front of her, stumbled and the pot with the tallow mixture much in the laundry tub.
Anuak's mother began to rant. Now she has to wash the whole laundry a second time.
But when she looked into the tub, she realized that the sebum was not making the laundry dirtier, but that the dirt was being removed from the laundry.

It may have been similar when the Sumerians took the first steps towards soap around 6,500 years ago.

The oldest soap-like recipes were found among the Sumerians, who lived around 6,500 years ago. They noticed the properties of the combination of potash and fats and laid the foundation for soap.

The Egyptians refined the whole thing by adding soda. Even today you can quickly and easily make your own detergent from soap and soda.

Real soap, which could be formed into bars, was brought to us by the Arabs. They cooked oils, salts, potash and lime together. That's all that was needed for soap in the traditional sense.

And with that we are already in the Middle Ages.
These were not so dirty as generally claimed. There were a number of bathhouses that were even available to the bourgeoisie and the poorer population.
This sadly ended when the plague and syphilis came. Not knowing how such diseases were transmitted, people began to avoid crowds. Bathhouses were even made co-responsible for the spread and the bathing culture disappeared for the time being.
From then on, you 'cleaned' yourself with clean towels, powders and fragrances.

During the 18th century, water and soap were rediscovered as a body cleansing option.
At the beginning of the 19th century there was such a high demand for soap that it was almost impossible to meet. Industrial production, mostly with low-quality oils and fats, began.

Today we have the opportunity to deal more consciously with our raw materials.
These include all natural soaps.