Artisan Handmade Soap MercurialGirlbyGina: Soap, Not So Sweet Smelling in Colonial America

In previous articles, I have written about just how ancient soap making really is. See my posts on Castile Soap: The Soap of the Ancients, Castile Soap; Oatmeal Soap: Long Before Your Parents Made You Eat It...; and Honey Soap: The Secret Ingredient in Your Honey. I was curious about how past generations made their soap, and at what point did soap become the familiar, fragrantly lovely bar we would recognize today. My research taught me some interesting things.

As I have stated before, I use the melt and pour method of soap making. I purchase my soap bases from SFIC, a very reputable soap company that has been in business for over 40 years. I melt them down, add fragrance, color (or not), and pour the soap into molds. This is different from those who make cold process soap; they actually mix the lye and all the other ingredients to make the soap base itself. This method is very similar to how it was done in the past, but with very distinct differences.

In Colonial times people (usually the women of the family) made soap for their household. A family would save their animal fat and wood ashes. The wood ashes were combined with water very slowly, and eventually this process would make lye. The lye was combined with the animal fat in a big iron pot outside, because the rendering smelled awful. The soap would have to be stirred constantly and was not always a success. This process would produce soft soap.

At the beginning of colonization in America, people believed that water spread disease, which in fact was true for many parts of Europe at the time. Poor sanitation practices were the norm, especially in larger cities. This misunderstanding of how disease from tainted water worked lead people to bathe less. It was the Civil War that made civilians finally see that bathing was healthy. It started to become more widely known that bathing and regular washing with soap and water kept army camps sanitary.

Commercial soap as we recognize it in America today began with Proctor and Gamble in 1879. Ivory Soap, "the soap that floats," was one of the first scented soaps. There was a mistake made in the processing of the soap that made air bubbles get trapped inside the soap, which made it float. P&G used the "mistake" in their marketing campaign.

Unfortunately, as the years went on, commercial soap became less and less like the homemade soap of old. Most of the commercial soap we use today contains synthetic materials that are considered detergents, as opposed to real soap which is made out of natural products. Some of the synthetic additives you should look for in your soap are:

Parabens
Sodium Laureth/Sodium Lauryl Sulfate
Formaldehyde
Phthalates

I encourage you to leave your comfort zone and try some handmade soaps! Local craft fairs, farmers markets, and local specialty shops are the best places to find these soaps. Find me on MercurialGirlbyGina@Etsy, @Promenade on 6, and at Resurrection Furniture in Carmel, NY.