Dear reader,
I wanted to provide original and complete as much as entertaining information on the soap. Not just a mere “copy and paste” of the countless articles on the subject that are often very well done. I imagined a story telling the mythological and real origins of the products which were the beginnings of this amazing mixture. It was about the legendary Mount Sapo, in the Po region, then a few centuries later, the first real soaps from the Aleppo region that set out to conquer Egypt and all of the Maghreb. The beginnings of the soap by Arab Spain before joining our ancestors the Gauls and their neighbours the Germans who used this paste to lighten their hair and the mustaches of valiant warriors.
On its sanitary use, the so-called civilized Romans were then lagging behind. Then Marseille soap, which only has Marseille as the place of deposit and not of manufacture. Then the Middle Ages, aahhh this famous Middle Ages much more civilized than we were told until recently. Then the development of the product among Italian artists and artisans. Luxury product at the court of the greatest, household product to ensure the cleanliness of the laundry during a long process that the modern housewife completely ignores today. Household soap, cleaning, maintenance, cosmetic, laundry, ... small family and artisanal soap before WW1 and WW2. The imperative need for glycerin to make explosives has revolutionized the manufacturing and the impoverishment of the product: everyone can finally buy an industrial product which is increasingly denatured, simplified, degraded in quality. We make soap with everything and almost anything. It's no longer soap but detergent. In all forms, as long as the product foams and makes you dream.
"Where there is embarrassment, there is no more soap"
Before the dream turns into a nightmare: we only sold 1% of real soap in the 60s, the famous golden sixties know only heavy chemicals and synthetic products. Added to this is deforestation and the discovery of pesticides, endocrine disruptors, carcinogens, allergens, ... "where there is discomfort, there is no more soap". The timid return of artisanal soap, first in precarious regions, old recipes reappear, nothing but good, without additives, preservatives, dyes and activators of all kinds. Good people like Mességué (considered one of the precursors in Europe of phytotherapy, anticipating for several years a movement towards a return to the use of plants in terms of well-being and beauty) revive the natural product.
Search for a healthy product with a fashion effect that has been successful beyond all that one can imagine. The beginnings of organic and natural products. It is only the beginning of the long fight between Goliath the industrialist, cheap and who knows how to do everything against the small David, craftsman who earns poorly to manufacture small quantities of products "as before". And the outcome is not certain. Healthy products, organic, short production cycle, guaranteed good for health are now required. And regulations jump in, they slow down the progression of artisans and discourage the less persistent. Some see it as a maneuver or a conspiracy of multinationals reluctant to share the profit of world trade, ....
We easily slip into the soap. There is everything at once, so much and too much to tell. It is difficult to tell without taking sides, without affirming truths which are contradicted elsewhere. My knowledge has its limits, in science, history, commerce, ...
It is difficult to write a short and simple text, which can be supported by a multitude of notes relating to certified writings.
In a few lines as in two, I realize that the task is immense if we want to be relevant and complete. This is the challenge that I set myself. However, I will need much more than an episode.
Bruno, Artisan Soap Maker