Before soap, how did people keep things clean?
Have you ever wondered how people kept clean before they discovered soap? Well, I have.
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There’s some gist about reasons why certain people didn’t even believe they needed soap. For example, the French believed that the stronger (bigger) your body odour, the more robust your sexuality. They own the proverb “the more the ram stinks, the more the ewe loves him”. But, I’m even speaking generally; keeping clean generally, not just bathing.
Truth is, no body is truly aware of when soaps were discovered, we all just speculate. Roman legend has it that soap was named after an ancient site of animal sacrifices, called “Mount Sapo”. Women who washed in the river that surrounded the foot of this mount noticed that when they washed their clothes in some parts of the river, especially after a heavy downpour, their clothes were much cleaner. Turns out, these ‘cleaner parts’ directly traced back up to the site of the sacrifice. Following any animal sacrifices, rain would wash the animal fat and ash- which would have collected at the foot of the ceremonial altars- down to the banks of the Tiber river. This explanation that this story provides might be true but no evidence of the mount has ever been found.
Ancient Babylonians evidently wrote the first soap recipe as signified by the material found during the excavation of Babylon: cylinders were found with 2800BC-old inscriptions on them, stating that fats had been boiled with wood-ash. This is clearly a method used to make soap. There is also evidence that dates back to 1550BC indicating that ancient Egyptians mixed animal and vegetable oils with wood-ash and had their baths with the resultant product. And the Egyptians bathed regularly, unlike the French.
As civilization came, attitudes to bathing changed. There were points where bathing peaked and points where it declined. Eventually, we got to the point where fragrances were included for various uses such as shampooing, laundry, et cetera.
Ancient Indians used soap nuts which consisted of 12 herbs that smelled horribly but did wonders on the skin in terms of cleaning and moisturizing. So what we know now as soaps have just been developed, not invented.
Everything has led me to believe that before all of these discoveries of soaps and soap recipes, people just used water to wash- water with different mixtures as were appropriate for what was being cleaned but water nonetheless. After all, “only water” can still clean a lot of things beyond averagely. So, for simple stains, water would suffice. For harder stains, water and vigorous rubbing. For even tougher stains, say grease, for instance, they’d combine water with other common materials like tree bark, tree sap, fine sand, leaves, flowers, fruits and the products of squeezing these leaves. These were used to keep hand and body clean, hair, clothes, cutlery as well. Even though substitutes have always been the way- for those who couldn’t afford soap and for those who lived far away from trees and leaves- most people basically washed with plain water.
Plants and plant products were the major substitutes. The leaves and flowers of Hibiscus were useful as soap and shampoo, tree barks were used to scrub the skin since they were observed to have contained compounds that could both wet and clean the skin. Some plants products served as skin whiteners while some were crushed to produce lather.
So, incase you wake up and find yourself far far away from civilization, remember these words.
