Lather up! Here’s how one of our most ubiquitous — and essential — hygiene products is made.
Have you ever looked at the bar of soap sitting in your shower — I mean, really looked at it? That seemingly nondescript cleanser has been around, in one form or another, for thousands of years, serving a variety of purposes from curing disease to purifying skin. Let’s take a closer look at how soap is made, packaged, and delivered to millions of bathers around the globe.
The Early Days of Soap Making
While its exact origins are unknown, the existence of soap has been documented as far back as 600 B.C., when the Phoenicians produced it with goat’s tallow and wood ash. The Romans then channeled its medicinal properties for centuries before using it as a cleanser after 100 A.D. By the eighth century, soap had become a common cleaning agent throughout southern Europe, particularly in France, Italy, and Spain, but thanks to high taxes, it remained a luxury for most until several centuries later.
With the repeal of these taxes on soap manufacturers and the rise of effective mass production strategies, soap became increasingly common throughout Europe and the United States in the nineteenth century. Today, the soap industry produces $3.1 billion in annual revenue in the United States alone, and it’s become an essential cleaning agent in homes, hospitals, and restaurants throughout the world.
Soap Manufacturing 101
While the soap making supply chain has evolved considerably in response to new technologies, the raw materials used in a typical bar of soap — fat and alkali — have remained largely unchanged since the earliest days of soap manufacturing. The first manufacturers relied on unprocessed animal fat as their primary ingredient, while today’s soap makers employ fats that have already been processed into fatty acids to produce a purer soap. These materials are then converted into soap in a precise and labor-intensive process involving the constant addition and removal of product, a technique that enables manufacturers to make soap faster and in larger batches.
During this process, the fat is split into fatty acids and glycerin in a steel column called a hydrolyzer. The purified fatty acids are then mixed with alkali — typically sodium hydroxide — to form soap. Other ingredients like fragrances, colorings, or abrasives might be introduced thereafter. As soon as the materials are mixed together, the hot liquid soap is poured into molds and allowed to harden or cool. Once the soap is cooled, it’s cut, stamped, and ready for packaging.
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From the Factory to the Bathtub
The last step of the soap manufacturing process is packaging, with bars of soap typically wrapped and packed either individually or in multi-packs before final delivery to retailers. Like every industrial supplier, soap manufacturers must consider cost, waste, shelf appeal, and ease of use when selecting packaging materials. Once these decisions are made, the finished soap is packaged and transported to distributors.
Bar soap was the world’s first mass produced form of soap, and it remains an important commodity today. In recent years, however, sales of bar soap have largely been eclipsed by liquid soap, which now accounts for 87% of annual soap sales. Despite this shift, the traditional bar of soap still has many uses in our cleanliness-obsessed culture, and demand for all forms of the sudsy substance is sure to remain strong.