"Sacha" wrote in message
...


People paid attention to personal hygiene in mediaeval times too.

That does surprise me, I wouldn't have tought that soap had been
invented
then.

Of course it had! And it's easy to make, I did it for a long time and
still
do for museums.

Mary


I believe that people looking after old or delicate fabrics use an extract
or distillation of Saponaria to wash them in.

Some people claim that soapwort sp will clean delicate fabrics. It certainly
does make a lather (I grow it for that purpose) but I'm not convinced that
it cleans any better than just water.*

And
"In classical times, perfumed oils were in extensive use for bathing and
were combined with the use of the strigil, a metal implement used to
scrape
the skin free of oil and dirt. It is claimed that, for washing themselves,
the Romans used a type of clay found near Rome called "sapo" from which
the
word soap is derived.4 An alternative suggestion for the derivation of the
name is that the Romans learned the art of soap-making, using animal fats
and plant ashes, from the Celts, who called it "saipo".6

None of those is soap as we know it. Oiling and scraping does work - I've
used it and it's invigorating and effective and it leaves the skin soft but
it's nothing like the effect of soap. Older civilisations than the earliest
Roman's used real soap as we'd recognise it.

The use of soap in personal hygiene does not appear to have been adopted
until the second century when the physician Galen (130*200AD) mentions its
use for washing the body. Another physician, Priscianus (circa 385AD),
reported the use of soap as a shampoo and made the first mention of the
trade of "saponarius", or soap-boiler.6

You've been Googling! But Google is not always right. Soap as we know it was
used before the earliest 'Roman' times. They didn't invent everything.

While soap was in use during the Roman period its adoption may have been
slow, despite the popularity of public and private baths throughout the
empire. Possibly early soaps, made from animal fat and crude alkali, were
not particularly attractive in appearance or smell, and were deemed more
suitable for cleaning and laundering.

Refined animal fat (tallow) and lye (made by filtering water through wood
ash) mixed together make a recognisable soap which is effective for
laundering AND personal use. It's brown but it doesn't have an offensive
smell at all. It smells like real soap.

I first made it forty years ago when we couldn't afford even the cheapest
commercial soap. We used it for personal use and for all laundry including
even cleaning my husband's overalls, it worked for everything and caused no
problems (unlike some modern soaps which had and have an unfortunate effect
on sensitive parts).

People who say that it's unattractive or ineffective have never seen, made
or used it! It's the same with tallow candles, there's a myth that they
smelled and smoked, they don't but I bet that the majority of websites - and
books - claim that they do. It's ignorance on the part of the writers, they
have no personal experience but merely repeat what's been said before by
other people who have no experience. It happens in all disciplines - even
gardening :-)

Basic soap is becoming fashionable again, along with red 'carbolic' soap -
you can buy it in tourist centres. It's very interesting. When I was younger
it was sold as 'household' soap as opposed to 'toilet' soap. It's all
basically the same thing. I bought some soap in USA which was advertised as
"So pure it floats!" That means that more profit was made for the
manufacturer.

The remains of what might have been a
soap factory were discovered in Pompeii, which was overwhelmed by an
eruption of Vesuvius in 79AD, but possibly this was a site for producing a
type of Fuller's earth for cleaning fabrics."

The use of Fullers Earth is a different process altogether.

Mary