Farm and Soap Updates — history

Soap has existed since before recorded history, though if you read my short history of soap and hand washing, you know that using soap for hygiene practices like hand washing is less than 200 years old. But did you know that using soap for household cleaning like laundry, dishes and mopping is also relatively recent?  For most of that history, soap was far from the ubiquitous cleanser that it is today. Before soap, most households used dry cleaning methods like sweeping and brushing for the majority of tasks. Greasy chores like laundry and dishes were accomplished with wood ash, to make...

A History of Soap and Hand Washing Who invented soap? Frankly, we will never know because soap has been around for a very long time. As in a 'before recorded history' long time! The first time soap does show up in the historical record is 5,000 years ago in ancient Mesopotamia [1]. Historically, soap was first used to clean textiles and dishes rather than people. Some cultures thought it might have medical properties for the skin but at this point we're a long way from any understanding of germ theory. Even the idea of being "clean" was motivated more by religion than...