According to archaeologists, already 6 thousand years ago there was a well-established production of soap, raw materials for which were natural alkaline salts, plants and animal fats. In the days of Antiquity, goat, lamb and beef fat was used for making soap, to the solution of which beech wood ash was mixed.
During the campaigns of conquest, the Romans encountered the Gaul tribes who lived in what is now France, Belgium, Switzerland and Northern Italy. The arrogant Romans scornfully called their opponents barbarians, but, approaching the realities of life quite pragmatically, they, on occasion, did not miss the opportunity to adopt various useful "barbaric" habits and skills.
The path to excellence
Among other trophies of that war were the drugs with which the Gauls dyed their hair. Hair color and tattoos testified to the warrior's prowess and indicated his status in the community. The desired effect was achieved by using paint extracted from certain types of clay, crushed into dust and mixed with oil and squeeze from the roots, from which, when water was added, the mixture began to foam. This product washes out hair perfectly, making it frizzy and dyeing it in different shades of red.
The cunning Romans introduced the ashes of sea plants into the Gallic recipe, thereby obtaining a liquid soap with a coloring effect that is very similar to modern shampoo. They even learned to get the colors they needed, in which they painted their hair. For the most part black-haired, the inhabitants of the Apennine Peninsula preferred to paint their heads in yellow, pink and intense red colors. In this sense, the Romans were a couple of millennia ahead of the punks, who were handsome their "haiers" and Iroquois in a similar color scheme.
In the Middle Ages, the main centers of soap production were concentrated on the Mediterranean coast - in Castile, Marseille, Naples and the Syrian city of Aleppo. Olive oil was used as a basis for making soap in these places, and this product was not cheap at all. Masters sacredly kept their secrets, passing them on from family to family. With such careful observance of the secrets of production, which helped to keep high prices for soap, only very rich and noble people could afford to use it, and such, as everyone knows, is always much less than the ordinary and poor.
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Russian variant
As in many other places, the secret of the independent production of soap in Russia was not immediately discovered. Before this happened, the Russians washed themselves using various means that were at their fingertips. Our ancestors poured wood ash into a barrel of rainwater, receiving an infusion of alkali. She washed and washed. Also, clean fine sand was used as a scrub for washing.
Clay was in great demand, which for a long time was the main substitute for modern soap. Of course, not every clay was suitable for washing and washing. What was required was a special one - white, greasy, to the touch even reminiscent of today's soap - which is now called "soapy clay" for the properties of nature. Getting it was not easy at all. At first, experts were looking for a place where such clay could lie. Then they dug up to it, making their way through layers of red clay - "shirevka", then through layers of yellow clay - "fur", passing which they reached the white "soapstone". The washing action of this clay is based on the ability to emulsify fats and mineral oils in an aqueous medium and thereby cleanse dirt from bodies and clothes.
Actually, we washed ourselves not with the "soap" itself, but with its water solution. To do this, white clay was diluted in a vat with water and stirred thoroughly, achieving a homogeneous mixture that resembled a thin gruel. It was rubbed with it, and then washed off with water.
Also, for washing in the bath, they used leavened leaven and liquid oatmeal dough mixed with herbal decoctions. As for the latter, our savvy ancestors, who were much more intimate with nature, used a plant that was not accidentally called soapwort as a raw material for the preparation of bath potions.
As the writings of authoritative botanists inform us, "medicinal soap grows in flood meadows, along forest edges, in valleys and along sandy river banks, on weedy fields, often near dwellings …"
Simply put, in our latitudes, this most useful plant grows anywhere in the most gratifying abundance. The roots of soapwort are saturated with saponins, which are "nitrogen-free organic compounds from glycosides of plant origin" and have the beneficial property of actively foaming thickly when they enter water. This solution not only washed and disinfected well, but also cleaned, removing stains from clothes, and therefore was used both for bathing and for washing. Licorice, elderberry and nettle were used for shampooing. They were tormented in boiling water, and with the resulting infusions they washed their hair. They do not disdain to use these means to this day.
Expensive goods
Despite the fact that the Russian people managed to manage quite successfully without soap, the study of the various properties of useful substances ultimately led to the fact that in the 16th century Russian artisans learned to cook their own soap.
The process of soap-making carried the danger of fire and the smell was spread by a heavy one, and therefore the soap-works were built on the outskirts of housing. When setting up a soap-making establishment, a stove was placed in a spacious barn, into which several large boilers were embedded. Plank chests were attached to the walls, in which ash was kept. They needed scoops, tubs and barrels for water, a horse with a cart to carry water from the river - their own wells on the estates were rare. They also required scoops and oars for stirring soapy liquid in boilers and pouring it into molds. The soap box also needed a glacier, a deep cellar with double walls, the space between which was filled with ice. In this cellar, where even in summer the temperature was below freezing, they kept a supply of bacon, which served as a fatty base for making soap.
Soap brewing began with the preparation of potash. To do this, the master with his assistants went to the forest, where he felled several suitable trees. While some were cutting trees, others made a fire, on which they burned the resulting wood, until it was completely turned into ash. This ash was collected in boxes, brought to the workshop, where it was stirred in water, obtaining lye, which was poured into one of the boilers embedded in the furnace. The alkaline solution was boiled until the moisture was completely evaporated. The sediment obtained in the boiler was potash.
While potash was being cooked, beef or mutton fat mixed with a small part of water was melted in other kettles. For several days in a row, a kind of thickest broth was seething in large cauldrons, to which the proper proportion of potash was added, which caused the mixture to "saponify".
Initially, Russian soap was used to degrease yarn before weaving. It was a paste with a heavy odor, easy to dissolve in water. Later, they began to prepare soap for washing, adding linseed oil to the boilers "for softness", berry extracts, herbal decoctions and other fragrances that beat off the "evil spirit" of ash and fat. Such soap was boiled down to thickening and poured into molds. When it froze, it was cut into pieces with simple knives. Such a soap was expensive. This product was branded like gold bars, and the manufacturer paid taxes on the number of pieces sold, which had the stamp of a state assay tent.
Until the very end of the 18th century, Russian soap was brewed in handicraft workshops, and only after 1800 the first soap factories began to appear in Russia, and their products slowly began to enter the everyday life of not only the bar, but also commoners.
Valery YARHO