History of Soap

There is no clear evidence that the use of soap for personal hygiene pre-dates the Christian era. Two mentions appear in the Old Testament. "For though thou wash thee with nitre, and take thee much soap, yet thine iniquity is marked before me," says the book of Jeremiah. A more modern translation reads: "Though you wash with soda and use soap lavishly. . . ."1 There are doubts as to whether this is a reference to true soap. It has been suggested that possibly a lye, made by mixing alkaline plant ash with water, was referred to, or possibly some form of Fuller's earth.2 This view is perhaps supported by the second mention, on virtually the final page of the Old Testament, in the book of Malachi, in which both the authorized version of 1611 and the modern translation read virtually identically: "He is like a refiner's fire, like a fuller's soap."3 It has been suggested that some form of soap, made by boiling fat with ashes, was being made in Babylon as early as 2800BC, but probably used only for washing garments. Pliny the Elder (7BC–53AD) mentions that soap was being produced from tallow and beech ashes by the Phoenicians in 600BC.4 This might have been used as a hair pomade rather than a washing soap.