SOAP

Introduction

We like to be clean. Clean feels good. It smells good. Clean means fewer microbes are around to hurt us. Clean clothes feel good. Clean dishes make food safer and more attractive.

For thousands of years, soap was the last word in clean

INGREDIENTS IN SOAPS

Ingredients used in making of soaps initialy:

The first soaps were probably the saps of certain plants, such as the Soap Plant (Chlorogalum pomeridianum), whose roots can be crushed in water to form a lather, and used as a shampoo.

Other plants, such as Soapbark (Quillaja saponaria), Soapberry (Sapindus mukorossi), and Soapwort (Saponaria officinalis) also contain the same main ingredient, a compound called saponin, which forms the foamy lather, and is also a toxin used to stupefy fish in streams to make them easy to catch.

VARIATION IN THE INGREDIENTS USED IN SOAPS IN THE LATER PART OF SCIENTIFIC WORLD

Later, people learned that fats would react with alkalies in the

ashes left over from a fire to produce saponified compounds such as sodium stearate and the related potassium stearate.

AND TODAY:

Today, soaps are made from fats and oils that react with lye (sodium hydroxide). Solid fats like coconut oil, palm oil, tallow (rendered beef fat), or lard (rendered pork fat), are used to form bars of soap that stay hard and resist dissolving in the water left in the soap dish.

Oils such as olive oil, soybean oil, or canola oil make softer soaps. Castile soap is any soap that is made primarily of olive oil, and is known for being mild and soft.

As warm liquid fats react with lye and begin to saponify, they start to thicken like pudding. At this point dyes and perfumes are often added. The hardening liquid is then poured into molds, where it continues to react, generating heat. After a day, the bars can be cut and wrapped, but the saponification process continues for a few weeks, until all of the lye has reacted with the oils.

Soaps are often superfatted, so after all of the lye has reacted with the fats, there are still fats left over. This is important for two reasons. First, the resulting soap is easier to cut, and feels smoother on the skin. Second, the extra fats make sure that all of the lye reacts, so no lye is left to irritate the skin, and the resulting soap is not too alkaline

The saponification process results in about 75% soap, and 25% glycerine. In homemade soaps, the glycerine is left in, as it acts as an emollient (skin softener) and adds a nice feel to the soap. In commercial soaps, the glycerine is often removed and sold separately, sometimes showing up in skin moisturizers that remedy the damage done by drying soaps.

Commercial bar soaps contain sodium tallowate, sodium cocoate, sodium palmate and similar ingredients, all of which are the results of reacting solid fats (tallow, coconut oil, and palm kernel oil respectively) with lye.

To these ingredients, they add fatty acids such as coconut acid and palm acid (the fats in coconut oil and palm kernel oil) as the extra fats needed to ensure the lye is completely reacted, and the soap has a good feel.

Polyethylene glycols such as PEG-6 methyl ether may be added as either surfactants, detergents, emulsifiers (to make the dyes and perfumes blend evenly), or as thickeners

Glycerine is added as an emollient and texture enhancer. Sorbitol is another emollient used along with glycerine. It is often added to help make glycerine soaps more transparent. Titanium dioxide is added to make the soap opaque.

Pentasodium pentetate, tetrasodium etidronate and tetrasodium EDTA are added as water softeners, and to protect the dyes and perfumes from the effects of metal ions in the mixtures. These compounds lock up calcium and magnesium in the water, preventing them from reacting with the soap to form insoluble soap scum.

DETERGENT BARS

Not all bars that lather contain just soap. Many contain the same detergents that you find in shampoo, along with soap.

In addition to the soaps and fatty acids, some bars will contain cocamidopropyl betaine (a mild amphoteric detergent added to decrease irritation without decreasing suds or cleaning power) and benzine sulfonate detergents such as sodium dodecylbenzinesulfonate. Other detergents such as sodium isethionate and sodium cocoyl isethionate are also common.

PRESERVATIVES

BHT (Butylated Hydroxytoluene) is sometimes added as an anti-oxidant preservative to keep the oils from going rancid.

ANTI MICROBIALS

Antibacterial soaps usually contain triclosan or triclocarban as the active anti-bacterial ingredient.

INTERESTING FACTS ABOUT SOAPS

Soap making goes back to the ancient city of Pompeii, Italy about 2000 years ago. Before the advent of bath soap, people would wash with plain water, and in ancient Rome they washed with oil. The Roman's body was rubbed with oil and the person would sweat in a steam bath. The oil was then rubbed off, and the bather finished up in a pool of cool water. This Roman oil bath sounds interesting, but not very clean.

Why are soap bubbles round? We thought you'd never ask. It's because the surface tension of the bubble's water wants to contract, and the sphere is the shape that holds the most volume within the smallest surface area.

Why does Ivory soap float? One day in 1875, an employee at Procter & Gamble accidentally left a soap mixer on when he went to lunch. The soap was so over-mixed that it had much more air in it and was more white than usual. The company tried selling this new product, and people loved it. The soap became very popular and has been floating ever since.

In the 1930s, soap companies sponsored the first US radio shows about the lives of everyday people. These were 15-minute shows intended to grab the attention of the listener so they would stick around to hear the advertisements. The term "soap opera" was eventually applied to all similar dramas. And all this time you thought a soap opera involved singing the praises of good soap.

Most Expensive Soap

Cor retails for $125 for a 120 gram bar.

If you can’t stand using the same soap as the plebeian hordes, then Plank—a producer of yoga-themed products—has the soap for you. It’s called Cor and it’s the world’s most expensive soap.

Among its ingredients, Cor has chitosan to even out skin tone, sericin—a silk extract—to trap moisture and provide UV protection and four types of collagen to help maintain skin structure. Silver, a known antibacterial agent, is what makes Cor the most expensive soap in the world.

On the other hand, it’s questionable (at best) that any of that crap can really help your skin. Chitosan and sericin will rinse right off and collagen is more useful in deeper layers of skin. The silver is, of course, proven, but there are much cheaper antibacterial soaps out there.