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The Ancient Art of Soap, and the Discovery of Lye for Soap-Making

According to Roman legend, the use of soap was discovered by women washing clothes in the Tiber River below Mount Sapo. Although today no-one is sure just where Mount Sapo was – or if it ever existed – it was said that animals were sacrificed to the Roman gods on top of the hill, and that rain would wash animal fats and ashes from the altars into the river. The women of Mount Sapo found that the residue from the altars helped wash their clothes – and so gave the name of Sapo to their discovery, which comes to us in English as Soap.

Whether that legend is true or not, soap made from animal or vegetable oils and ashes was known to many peoples in the ancient world. A recipe for soap dating from almost 5000 years ago has been found inscribed on a clay cylinder from Ancient Babylon. The formula used ashes, cypress oil and sesame seed oil to make a soap “for washing the stones of the servant girls” – a phrase which appears to refer to the practice of washing clothes on flat stones. And according to a papyrus from more than 3000 years ago, the ancient Egyptians also made a soap-like material by mixing animal fats and vegetable oils with alkaline salts.

The secret ingredient of these ancient soaps lay in the ashes and exotic salts. Soap is formed when certain oils are mixed with a strongly alkaline substance – such as the dissolved ash from the Roman alters, which would have contained potash, or potassium hydroxide. This process is known as Saponification – again, supposedly, from Mount Sapo.

Soap makers continued to use raw ashes to make rough soaps for thousands of years, and it wasn’t until the Middle Ages that people commonly started using lye – a corrosive solution of potash made by leaching water through the ashes of hardwood trees, such as apple or oak. Lye was used for cleaning animal skins to be made into leather, and it was also the perfect ingredient for soap. The magic of soap is that it cleans by dissolving oils in water – in a way similar to the corrosive lye – without being overly destructive to the skin.

In 1791 a French chemist, Nicolas Leblanc, developed a method to extract caustic soda from common salt. This was effectively a synthetic method of making pure lye, which today is a solution of caustic soda, or sodium hydroxide. But homemade lye for soap making continued to be used well into the 20th century by farming families in America, who made their own soap from the fat from their animals.

But unless you want to fire up a large hardwood bonfire and spend your time filtering rainwater through the ashes, pure lye is now an essential ingredient for making soaps, both commercially and in the home. In fact, if soap does NOT use lye today, it is not by definition a soap. Early in the 20th century chemists developed a process for making a new type of “soap” from petroleum by-products. These are now known as “detergents” and make up many commercial bathing products with labels like “body cleanser” or “shower gel”

If you are buying lye for soap making at home it must be handled with extreme care. In flakes (called “dry lye”), as a powder, or as a liquid lye is highly corrosive to many surfaces and especially to your skin. You must use gloves when handling lye, and preferably safety glasses as well. Use a face mask or stand well back when you dissolve dry lye in water. Lye for soap making should only be stored in an air-tight plastic container, not metal or glass.

You must take care to use the right concentration of lye for soap making, and to measure out the amounts of lye accurately. If the lye is too strong for the mixture, it can create a “harsh” soap that is unkind to skin. If the lye is too weak, the mixture won’t make good soap.

About the Author

Lye4you.com Is a subdivision of TSCC. TSCC is geared up for sales and services. We decided to separate the other division, and dedicated a site for lye for soap making.

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