Lye Soap - article about Lye Soap

Where would we be today with out soap? The simple commodity we use everyday to clean our bodies, our hair, our clothes, our cars, our dishes and more, is something we tend to take for granted. Have you ever wondered what it is exactly, and how it works? Who discovered soap, and how long have we been using it?

Fats, oils, and greases are very difficult to clean using just water since these substances don’t mix well with the liquid. Soaps are all chemically significant because they mix well with both water and fat based compounds. A portion of any soap chemical is ‘hydrophilic’, or ‘water loving’, and allows it to dissolve freely in water. The other half of soap compounds, however, is ‘hydrophobic’. This part of the soap allows it to mix with fats and oils, since they are also hydrophobic. Most soaps today use a formula involving lye, a caustic solution of potassium hydroxide, and are commonly called ‘lye soaps’.

When water with soap dissolved in it comes in contact with a fat based compound, the hydrophobic portion of the soap molecule attaches to the fat. The fat soon becomes completely covered in soap molecules and then breaks apart due to the soaps mutual attraction to the water molecules flowing around it. On a side note, this emulsification process is actually the same way we digest fat that we eat, with the liver made substance ‘bile’ acting as the ‘soap’. Bacteria, dirt, and other undesirable contaminants to our skin tend to get trapped in layers of oil than won’t readily come off with out using soap.

There are records of soap use that date as far back as ancient Babylon in the third millennium BC. Strangely, the Romans were not known to use soap. Though the word ‘soap’ first appears in a text written by the famous Roman scholar ‘Pliny the Elder’, he refers to it as a kind of ancient hair gel in use in some regions of the time, not for its detergent qualities.

Lye soap of the kind we know today was invented by the Arabs well after the fall of the Roman empire, in either the 6th or 7th centuries AD. The formula is the same basic formula we still use today. Generally, lye soaps are made by mixing animal fats with lye. Because lye is such a caustic chemical, this can be a dangerous process, but the resulting lye soap is of course harmless. Several alternative fats can be used to make a lye soap, many people make their own soaps at home using olive oil. Soap made with olive oil is sometimes called Castile soap, after the region of Spain in which it first became popular.

Whether washing your hands, taking a shower or doing your dishes, lye soap is an extremely useful tool in keeping good hygiene. I don’t even want to imagine what people smelled like back in times when it wasn’t known or used.

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