Soap is one of humankind’s earliest technologies. Around the globe, every ancient culture developed soap from their local plants, usually combining oils and sodium or potassium from ashes. Ancient Babylonians, Celts, Romans, African cultures and Native American tribes all had varying recipes for soap. Even today you can purchase Black African soap from eclecticlady.com handmade by women for a Fair Trade Program in Togo with the same technique as their ancestors.Some cultures used naturally occurring detergents from “soap plants”, plants rich in saponins, which produce a lather in water. “Soap Nuts” from the Chinese Soapberry tree, nut-like seeds of a fruit tree related to the lichee fruit, have been used for washing and laundry for centuries across the Eastern Hemisphere and are still in use today. They are marketed from India to the U.S. online at various websites.

Yucca and Soapwort, also known as “soap plants” have been used in cleaning by the indigenous people of North and South America and Europe for centuries. Soapwort, a common flower found on the European and American continents, has been used throughout the ages since the Ancient Romans, and even today it is used by some Swiss shepherds before they shear their flocks. I experimented by washing my hair with yucca. It worked great; a gentle but thorough cleaning power. (Recipe: Crush up 1/4 cup of skinned yucca and place it in a nylon “knee-high”. Tie and soak in a 1/2 cup cold water briefly then wash your hair. Rinse. Ahh!)

During World World I, synthetic detergents were developed. In the following decades, they overtook and glutted the soap industry, so that now most items sold as soap, including “liquid hand soap” and “bar soap” are really detergents. Most detergents are made of synthetic chemicals and are stripped of any glycerin that naturally occurs. (The by-product glycerin is then sold separately to consumers in the form of lotions and conditioners!)

You can search the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services’ Household Product Database for the ingredients of your current brand-name soap (aka “detergent”). Then from that same site check some of the individual ingredients on TOXNET and you will get a sense of the toxicity of all the synthetic chemicals that we have all been slathering on ourselves for years! YUK! Perhaps the typical bar of “soap” is not carcinogenic per se, but its typical ingredients cause respiratory and skin irritations and ingested in small quantities (i.e. .25-.5 grams) can cause lesions and death!

Real Soap, on the other hand, does not need any chemical additives and retains its natural glycerin so it is naturally softening. It is made purely of natural ingredients that include some kind of oil combined with lye, and perhaps an essential oil for fragrance or healing properties. These all-natural ingredients are mixed together, heated, cooled, and cured until the soap is saponified, whereby the lye is chemically changed to become non-caustic. Real Soap can be purchased today online and in specialty stores, and sometimes in grocery stores. The manufacturing process to make real soap is more time-consuming than “detergent soaps”, so real soap is usually more expensive than detergent. Often a bar of all-natural “real” soap can cost $3.00-5.00; a steep price compared to .50 for a cheap bar of “detergent” soap on the Bulk Aisle!

After finding out “the dirt” on “soap” I came up with Plan B: Get real soap into my house in the most economical manner by making my own! David Fisher on www.about.com has very clear articles and How-To videos showing the exact steps and tips for how to make cold-pressed soap, which is the most common way that real soap is made today.

I had a little difficulty finding lye, one of the main ingredients, so just be persistent. If you don’t have it at your local grocery store, you can probably find it at a hardware store. It is also available at chemical supply stores and at various sites online, like lyedepot.com, which also had some great, concise information on soap making.

Most recipes for cold-pressed soap mention the importance of using a lye calculator to double-check the amount of lye you should be using for the type of oils and water combination of your recipe. I found cranberrylane.com to be the most comprehensive and user-friendly lye calculator. Their website not only sells handmade soaps, but it is also has a lot of the supplies you may want to purchase to make your own soaps and body care items.

I won’t review all the steps for soap making, since other websites do a wonderful job explaining it. But I will say don’t be afraid to try your hand at crafting your own soap! I found it surprisingly, very easy. It took just a couple of hours. The cost was minimal. I used older utensils and containers that I already had; I will now reserve them for soap making. I did purchase a stick blender, since that really helps lessen the mixing step to just a few minutes!

The most important aspect to remember is that lye is very dangerous and you need to follow the safety steps carefully-but these commonsense safeguards are similar to the ones for using caustic oven cleaners. I found a span of time when my family was out, so I didn’t need to worry about accidents or interruptions-and I had a wonderful time!

I have three batches “curing” on top of my china cabinet as I write this-my lovely, little, lavender soaps will be ready just in time for the holidays! (So family and friends guess what you’re getting for Christmas?)

Join me and move away from the chemically-laden, detergent that we have been “sold” as soap and transfer over to naturally-moisturizing “real soap”! Take the step to buy or to make your own and you will literally feel the difference!