1Nowadays, we use different products for personal cleanliness, laundry, dishwashing and household cleaning,
2but this is very much a 20th-century development.
3The origins of cleanliness date back to prehistoric times.
4Since water is essential for life,
5the earliest people lived near water and knew something about its cleansing properties -
6at least that it rinsed mud off their hands.
7During the excavation of ancient Babylon,
8evidence was found that soapmaking was known as early as 2800 BC.
9Archaeologists discovered cylinders made of clay,
10with inscriptions on them saying that fats were boiled with ashes.
11This is a method of making soap,
12though there's no reference to the purpose of this material.
13The early Greeks bathed for aesthetic reasons and apparently didn't use soap.
14Instead, they cleaned their bodies with blocks of sand, pumice and ashes,
15then anointed themselves with oil,
16and scraped off the oil and dirt with a metal instrument known as a strigil.
17They also used oil mixed with ashes.
18Clothes were washed without soap in streams.
19The ancient Germans and Gauls are also credited with discovering how to make a substance called 'soap',
20made of melted animal fat and ashes.
21They used this mixture to tint their hair red.
22Soap got its name, according to an ancient Roman legend, from Mount Sapo,
23where animals were sacrificed, leaving deposits of animal fat.
24Rain washed these deposits, along with wood ashes,
25down into the clay soil along the River Tiber.
26Women found that this mixture greatly reduced the effort required to wash their clothes.
27As Roman civilisation advanced, so did bathing.
28The first of the famous Roman baths, supplied with water from their aqueducts,
29was built around 312 BC.
30The baths were luxurious, and bathing became very popular.
31And by the second century AD,
32the Greek physician Galen recommended soap for both medicinal and cleansing purposes.
33After the fall of Rome in 467 AD
34and the resulting decline in bathing habits,
35much of Europe felt the impact of filth on public health.
36This lack of personal cleanliness and related unsanitary living conditions
37were major factors in the outbreaks of disease in the Middle Ages,
38and especially the Black Death of the 14th century.
39Nevertheless, soapmaking became an established craft in Europe,
40and associations of soapmakers guarded their trade secrets closely.
41Vegetable and animal oils were used with ashes of plants,
42along with perfume, apparently for the first time.
43Gradually more varieties of soap became available for shaving and shampooing,
44as well as bathing and laundering.
45A major step toward large-scale commercial soapmaking occurred in 1791,
46when a French chemist, Nicholas Leblanc, patented a process for turning salt into soda ash,
47or sodium carbonate.
48Soda ash is the alkali obtained from ashes that combines with fat to form soap.
49The Leblanc process yielded quantities of good-quality, inexpensive soda ash.
50Modern soapmaking was born some 20 years later,
51in the early 19th century,
52with the discovery by Michel Eugene Chevreul, another French chemist,
53of the chemical nature and relationship of fats, glycerine and fatty acids.
54His studies established the basis for both fat and soap chemistry,
55and soapmaking became a science.
56Further developments during the 19th century made it easier and cheaper to manufacture soap.
57Until the 19th century, soap was regarded as a luxury item,
58and was heavily taxed in several countries.
59As it became more readily available, it became an everyday necessity,
60a development that was reinforced when the high tax was removed.
61Soap was then something ordinary people could afford,
62and cleanliness standards improved.
63With this widespread use came the development of milder soaps for bathing
64and soaps for use in the washing machines that were available to consumers by the turn of the 20th century.