Thank you MM for this history of soap.

MM wrote:
"and remember hair only gets greasy in response to regular washing with detergents, if left along and just brushed regularly it generally sorts itself out"

That is an argument that I will use in response to the partner's nearly each four days request to wash my hair...being alone and master of oneself has its advantages...but I have to agree also "some" disadvantages...

And one learns here everyday on RH: a Samuel Pepys drinking Castle soap snippets in his milk for gallstones (I suppose: "galstenen")...and washing the hair with "soapwort"?
https://www.thespruce.com/herb-soapwort-4107277

Kind regards from Paul.

Meles meles wrote:

Samuel Pepys mentions another use of soap when for 12 February 1662/3 he wrote:

Then came an old man from Mr. Povy, to give me some advice about his experience in the stone, which I [am] beholden to him for, and was well pleased with it, his chief remedy being Castle [Castile] soap in a posset.
Then in the evening to the office, late writing letters and my Journall since Saturday, and so home to supper and to bed.

So he drank some shavings of soap in his night-time posset (milk curdled with wine or ale) as a medicine to aid his gallstones.

I think he actually had a bladder stone, reputedly "the size of a billiard ball". This was the
"stone" cutting for which was not to be done by those taking the commonest form of the Hippocratic oath iirc.

Pepys's diary is a great source for this kind of thing, and there's even another rather telling little reference in his diaries to soap.

On Tuesday 31st January 1660 he dropped into his mentor Edward Montagu's London "lodgings" (a rather modest name for what was a substantial town house in its own grounds on Little Queen Street), and among other duties there " ... set out a barrel of soap to be carried to Mrs. Ann." Ann was a senior member of Montagu's domestic staff and one of her roles would have been as supervisor over the laundry - not a discreet little room with a tub and a washerwoman, but a small business in its own right with a group of women employed from the area who not only did the laundry for the household but who also would have operated as a neighbourhood "laundromat" in the Holborn district. And we can tell this was true of Montagu's house from Pepys's seemingly casual mention of a barrel.

As bona fide businesses these laundries were liable to regular inspection by officials (still "commonwealth" rather than "crown" in January 1660), not so much to check hygiene standards but to ensure that they did not use non-regulatory materials or methods, one of which was the prescribed "barrel of soap" for which taxes were liable, even though the contents would have been manufactured from the contents of the household's own kitchens and fireplaces. In a large household the manufacture of soap normally fell to the kitchen staff, the kitchen being a natural assembly point for the materials required, notarised there for distribution to the laundry if the scale of production merited it from which smaller households tended to buy either service or materials, which is why they had to be notarised as items for re-sale. Modestly sized households, such as Pepys's own might have a washerwoman who would have made the soap herself, though only for use in that household and therefore rarely anything comparable in amount as to a "barrel". And this level of legality about the whole business brought with it quite a bit of regulation.

Pepys's "setting out" a barrel was part of his general duties as unofficial chamberlain in the house (he also doubled as Montagu's legal secretary in certain matters) and meant that he was responsible for making sure everything was above board (washboard?). First he had to certify that the proportions of tallow to lye were correct, and then that the barrel had a capacity of 36 "ale gallons" and itself weighed no more than 26 pounds when empty. This rule had been in operation since 1531 (said to have been a law drawn up by Anne Boleyn herself). Then he had to certify that it was intended solely for use in a designated laundry business. He might also have supervised production of half-barrels (13 pounds) and firkins (6.5 pounds), governed by the same law and which could be legally sold on to individuals for more modest private use. So what his little throw-away line actually conveyed to a 17th century reader would have been that 1) Montagu's London house was bloody big, 2) that Pepys was in with Montagu to the extent that he was trusted with notarising duties, and 3) that "Mrs Ann" used full barrels of soap, indicating a thriving laundry business operating out of Montagu's property.

Pepys' diary is riddled with such vainglorious little hints at his own importance, though I reckon that many (as with the soap barrel) now go over most readers' heads with a whoosh.

nordmann wrote:

Pepys's diary is a great source for this kind of thing ...

While we are talking about soap and washing: from his diary entries it is clear that Pepys prided himself on his appearance and hated slovenliness and dirt, but from another throw away remark he clearly thought his wife's standards of personal hygiene were somewhat lower than his own (ignoring the fact that just the night before he'd visited a prostitute):

Tuesday 21 February 1664/65
Up, and to the office (having a mighty pain in my forefinger of my left hand, from a strain that it received last night) in struggling ‘avec la femme que je’ mentioned yesterday*, where busy till noon, and then my wife being busy in going with her woman to a hot-house [ie the public baths] to bathe herself, after her long being within doors in the dirt, so that she now pretends to a resolution of being hereafter very clean. How long it will hold I can guess.

* 20 February
... and by and by did go down by water to Deptford, and then down further, and so landed at the lower end of the town, and it being dark ‘entrer en la maison de la femme de Bagwell’, and there had ‘sa compagnie’, though with a great deal of difficulty, ‘neanmoins en fin j’avais ma volont d’elle’, and being sated therewith, I walked home to Redriffe, it being now near nine o’clock, and there I did drink some strong waters and eat some bread and cheese, and so home.

It depends of course on which "hot-house" Mrs Pepys and "her woman" were frequenting. If they had ventured the short distance from their house to Southwark in the 1660s then their destination might well have been one of the many "bagnios" that had survived Cromwell's puritanical reforms (some said even thrived because of them). The term, derived from the Italian for "bath house", had come to replace the older "stews" for the area's many such establishments, namely because they offered not only the means to get down and dirty but to then come up all clean and pure again in that they offered the client a chance to bathe in some comfort, along with some even more exotic purgatory services such as steam closets and (for the very thorough) perfumed enemas.

One such establishment, still operating under the "Ordinance of the Bishop of Winchester" (about the best imprimatur a Restoration brothel could advertise), was called simply the "Bow House" and was situated on Bankside, its unique sales pitch being that it catered almost exclusively to ladies. For this purpose its "employees" included some men, but quite a few more women (who according to the "Bishop's Rules" could neither be married nor ex-nuns), which in itself casts an interesting light on what its female clientele expected by way of sexual gratification outside of the marital bed. The Bow House also had a considerable reputation for some of the finest baths in the city catering for women, or at least that's what the ladies told their husbands afterwards.

This interesting painting by Beuckelaer depicts a "Bishop's House" in Southwark exactly a century before Mrs Pepys might have visited. Something has obviously gone terribly wrong in the acrobatics department for one of the customers, so I can see why baths became a necessary feature of these premises!

 

That acrobatic "customer" is sporting a prominent codpiece, so I rather take it he's one of the "staff", although it still begs the question, what exactly is the service he's providing.

In truth they're all rather over-dressed for the occasion, both customers and staff.

I'm guessing he's a customer who, after expressing a fear that he may have contracted something iffy from his visit, had been told by an employee who had forgotten they were all still back in the 16th century that he had better take some "salts" before he left.

There was a question earlier regarding just when people began using soap, and how they came up with seemingly obscure methods for manufacturing it. In that light I have been trying to trace semantic consistency through language use and see how far back soap brought me, and thanks to one humble weed the answer is a surprisingly long way indeed.



In English this little flowering plant is called Soapwort, and it is an ubiquitous little thing - presumed to have originated in temperate areas of the Middle East and now thriving in almost every temperate region of the globe. It fares best in semi-saturated soil next to streams, which in itself is probably the most relevant aspect to the plant, its known chemical properties, and its incredibly consistent semantic properties that extend through all extant languages and dialects, back through all known ancient forms of language, and right back to its Proto-Indo-European linguistic roots, all of which refer to its soap-like character in its name.

Such semantic consistency is actually very much the exception in etymology, and especially etymology that can be traced right back to PIE. When it occurs therefore there is very much that can be construed from this quality, including not only a blatancy to the original word as a descriptor that time could not eradicate, but also by extension an application of this descriptor associated with a very ancient practise that time has not altered.

Many plants, if used in the process of hand-washing, assist the process by acting as extra agitants in the removal of grease and grime from skin. For anyone washing their hands in a stream to remove noxious or unsightly blemish, plucking a decent clump of adjacent foliage and rubbing this against the skin will inevitably speed up the procedure while removing stains more thoroughly than just rubbing one's hands together with water as the sole cleansing agent. It cannot have taken much time therefore before individuals happened upon this stream-dwelling plant and immediately noticed that it far superseded all others in this respect. Its petals especially, when crushed against wet skin, immediately raise a lather and the unguent residue smeared on the skin visibly lifts and removes even the most stubborn stains.

It cannot therefore have been long either before this plant was collected and carried around, and even cultivated, for this property. And once under such scrutiny then its other components must also have been soon examined for potential benefits. Its leaves, for example, when heated in water, produced an effective emulsifier that allowed the preparation of many staple foods combining ingredients that otherwise yielded little by way of nutrient in edible form. Even today that staple of the Middle East and Eastern Mediterranean, halvah, a sort of "fudge bread", uses soapwort as the emulsifier of choice in its baking. Its roots, when boiled, were very early in history discovered to produce an even more effective soap than its petals in that it could be rendered simply through open-air drying into a cake form and on that basis became probably the world's earliest form of solid soap in widespread use.

Its most important contribution therefore was probably in establishing, way back in prehistory, a sort of template for how soap should look and feel, as well as the minimum properties by which it could be called soap at all. This would have been of immense help to others who then noticed similar properties derived from other natural sources and who wished, through refining relevant processes, to emulate these qualities using these other ingredients.

I must admit that I was unaware of the etymology of soap before now, and have now fallen down something of a linguistic rabbit hole (though a rather enjoyable one) in finding out the potential extent to which the term has insinuated itself into so much seemingly unrelated nomenclature, from ancient people's "tribal" names, to place names, and even the names of other "things" that might share only a fleeting connection with soap itself - "sap" and "juice" being just two of almost equal antiquity to soap itself.

Thanks for the survey, nordmann, I learned from it.

Yes thanks to MM's story I learned yesterday for the first time of my life about "soapwort" and now from you a lot more.

For sheer interest I will plant it once in the garden and will check how it effectively works, when the Corona virus is a bit away...

Kind regards, Paul.

I'd be wary of introducing it to your garden, Paul, as I think it's quite invasive, especially in moist rich soil, a bit like mint or nettles. Or as John Gerard's Herball, or Generall Historie of Plantes (first published in 1597) says, "The roots are thick, long, creeping aslope, having certain strings hanging out of them like to the roots of Black Hellebore: and if they have once taken good and sure rooting in any ground it is impossible to destroy them."

He goes on to say, "It is planted in gardens for the flowers' sake, to the decking up of houses, for the which purpose it chiefly serveth. It groweth wild of itself near to rivers and running brooks in sunny places. ... It is commonly called Saponaria, of the great scouring quality that the leaves have: for they yield out of themselves a certain juice when they are bruised, which scoureth almost as well as soap: although Ruellius describe a certain other Soapwort. Of some it is called Alisma, or Damasonium: of others, Saponaria gentiana, whereof doubtless it is a kind: in English it is called Soapwort, and of some Bruisewort."

Meles meles is correct! For a plant that chooses to be happiest alongside streams, rills, and prefers other such faster running water habitats, it actually thrives very well in rockeries and during its flowering season has a lovely scent, especially in the evening, so is a popular choice where the garden is little more than a rockery surrounded by concrete. However it's a self-pollinator and therefore delivers ready-made baby bombs to visiting insects (with which it is a very popular port of call). So if you're the type who likes a little variety in your garden (or wishes to keep on friendly terms with neighbours who also have gardens) then heed John Gerard's warning well!

MM and nordmann, thank you both for this valuable information.

Kind regards, Paul.

Why  -   are you planning a rockery, Paul?  

Pears seem to have an unfortunate history thanks to their enthusiastic subscription to the "white man's burden" view of those who - they reckoned - unfortunately weren't quite white enough.

This "humorous" advertisement shows how one indigenous native of the sub-continent (an interesting confusion of cultural tropes, combining the Hindi "airavata" with South-East Asian veneration of the albino pachyderm) uses their product to improve an elephant and elevate it to sacred status, with a little hint that he might even think to extend its use to himself:

nordmann wrote:

Why  -   are you planning a rockery, Paul?  

nordmann of course I thanked you for your information, valuable for me to avoid the invasion in my garden of such a "creeping" plant.
But I am nearly sure you knew it, you naughty boy...

PS. I was hesitating to use "creeping" as it was too obvious the same as my word "kruipend" I had to translate...because of the word that I knew: "creepy"...and after check I see indeed: creep in Dutch: kruipen...

Perhaps for Comic Monster interesting too, if he is still there...how unpredictable the English language is...
https://dictionary.cambridge.org/dictionary/english/creepy

Kind regards, Paul.

If you want to try and grow soapwort, just do like I do with mint (another notoriously rampant plant that spreads via hidden but nigh indestructible roots) and grow it in a big pot or tub from which the roots cannot get out. Let it flower for the blooms, the smell and to benefit the bees, but then remove the seed pods so it doesn't propagate. My culinary spearmint plant has lasted for years treated like that.

Meles meles wrote:

If you want to try and grow soapwort, just do like I do with mint (another notoriously rampant plant that spreads via hidden but nigh indestructible roots) and grow it in a big pot or tub from which the roots cannot get out. Let it flower for the blooms, the smell and to benefit the bees, but then remove the seed pods so it doesn't propagate. My culinary spearmint plant has lasted for years treated like that.

MM, that's an interesting idea. As I have a border of nearly 0.6 m, where I plant all kind of things, from shrubs, to bushes. And I tried also gardenherbs as chives, mint and thyme in that "band?" of garden, but as I am afraid of contamination, while I, although I "wied" (weed?) every three months,  nevertheless distribute by sowing, some grains, destroying the growth of all what I weed each three months...

So your idea of yours to put it in pots, is of course excellent. So I can take a knife, every moment  I need for instance some chives...

Thanks for the idea, MM and kind regards.

Priscilla wrote:

In the East one can still get LIfebuoy.

That always reminds me of the shower block at school where it was standard issue. The red colour of the bars of soap seemed to suggest a serious degree of potency in the product and, therefore, just the thing for cleaning muddy and sweaty teenage boys after a rugby match:



P.S. Do youngsters still use the term 'B.O.' these days?

This was the stuff the "Sisters of Charity" [sic] opted for back when I was a wee one in their "infants school" [sic]. Irish nuns, presumably drawing on the privileges obtained from being brides of a polygamist christ and Irish to boot, made up their own political rules, but instinctively sided with the big guns.

PS: Vizzer, Osmidrosis may sound like a minor character from the Iliad flattened by Ajax in chapter two, but I believe is also currently the trending term for what we used to call B.O. I am not sure if the modern version is also best treated with an application of Ajax, but then I'm not quite in the yoof-loop these days.
.

When I was relatively recently retired I went through a phase where I made up a soap powder that was a bit like what our fondly remembered friend Paul mentioned.  I didn't come up with it myself - it was something I saw online.  It was a mixture of equal amounts of washing soda and borax substitute (sodium sesquicarbonate) and some grated soap flakes. It was quite good fun but I don't make it anymore because honestly I'm not sure if it saves a lot of money.  I guess it was basically the concoction Victorian and Edwardian women used for clothes washing (maybe without the sodium sesquicarbonate). I'd been thinking about this because in the online dictation class last week one of the dictations (from 1964) mentioned some engineers at a certain location whose job entailed washing clothes in various experimental detergent mixtures to see which worked best.  I still use washing soda and sodium sesquicarbonate (and bicarb of soda) in cleaning; washing soda is quite good for killing off lichen too.

I saw a video where a lady (in America) was saying she had stopped using homemade soap powder because after a period of time her towels had stopped fluffing up. I never had that problem when I used the DIY stuff but then I'm a single lady so I don't have to go to the launderette as often as a young mum with a husband/partner and some lively children.  Another thing mentioned was that modern washing machines work differently to the way Mrs Victoriana or Mrs Edwardiana would have used the old washing dolly or even the hand-powered washing machine (my Mum had one of those a VERY long time ago obtained secondhand from a friend).  For old time's sake I looked on YouTube today.  There are still some videos giving instructions on making washing powder but I was alarmed by an Indian one where a man mentioned adding sulphuric* acid - albeit a relatively small amount - to washing soda.  He was wearing gloves, goggles and a mask but even so....I didn't even bother watching the rest of the video.  Maybe he was aiming more for an industrial type product.

*He might have said sulphonic acid.

I was reading upthread about soapwort. Apparently there is (are?) something called soap nuts though really they are berries.  I watched something where a 'back to nature' type had made some washing liquid using conkers and another one using ivy.  I've got loads of ivy to do battle with in my garden though unless detergent/soap powder rises astronomically I don't think I'll be making a witch's brew of it to wash my bits and bobs.

I remember using a dolly (upmarket copper one, not the chump style) at my grandmother's - and turning the handle of the mangle on washing days (aka Mondays). Soap flakes for garments except grandad's overalls - they got Tide (they followed the sheets into the copper)

Thinking about using sulphonic acid in kits to make cleaning products, it seems that in some countries it's not against the law to sell such kits.  Here a Kenyan lady is talking about buying a kit to make household bleach 

The same lady also has a video about homemade laundry powder which again seems to come from a kit.  I just hope people using the kits take all necessary precautions.  Still, bearing in mind this is the soap thread, people who make their own soap in the UK have to be careful because lye is used in the manufacturing of soap.  Making homemade soap isn't something I've tried. 

I recall one of our science teachers demonstrating this, but he had alkali to hand, rather than trying to extract  lye from wood ash.

That makes sense, Gilgamesh.  Soda ash which is used in the concoctions made by the Kenyan lady is alkaline (my understanding is it's another name for washing soda except that washing soda [sodium carbonate] tends to be in crystalline rather than powder form).

An alkali solution of potassium hydroxide (with variable amounts of sodium and calcium hydroxide too) can be quite easily extracted from wood ash simply by leaching and then filtering to get rid of the solid sooty and gritty bits, although I'd imagine the resulting liquid is still rather grey and so perhaps not ideal for one's finest white linen.

What the Kenyan lady above refers to as "chlorine" I take to be sodium hypochlorite, NaOCl, although as she discovers it will liberate free chlorine gas when added to the alkaline solution. What she calls "magadi" I assume is sodium carbonate in some form, ie soda. Lake Magadi in the Kenyan Rift Valley is a saline lake of sodium carbonate brine where the carbonate precipitates out to form thick evaporite deposits of the mineral known as trona, trisodium hydrogen.dicarbonate.dihydrate, Na3H(CO₃)₂.2H₂O, and which has been mined there since the 1900s as the raw material for making soda amongst other chemical products.

In the above youtubes the lady freely admits she doesn't know what the chemicals she's using exactly are, though I still would have expected her to be a bit more careful in her handling of them especially when she's making bleach; no apron to at least protect her clothes and leaving the spatula dripping onto her nice polished wooden table. It's all very well saving a few shillings by making your own cleaning products but not so cost effective if you ruin your clothes and furniture, to say nothing of the health effects of generating chlorine gas or the risk of splashing strong caustic solutions in the eyes.

On another note I was amused that on a couple of occasions she referred to prices in Kenyan shillings as being so-many "bob", so exactly like English pre-decimal shillings.

I agree about the wisdom - or lack of it - of the method of saving money, MM, especially as the lady otherwise seems sensible.  I would have put on mask, gloves and goggles* and probably an overall though I'm not sure I would try out the kit anyway.  Caustic soda also needs to be treated with respect (though saying that to someone with a chemistry qualification is a bit like teaching granny to suck eggs).  I didn't know about the soda deposits in Lake Magadi so thanks for the info.  I haven't looked up the rules about buying chemicals in the UK but I would imagine they are more stringent than countries where you can buy 'kits' to make the various cleaning products cited upthread.

* Not that I have a pair of goggles to my name currently.

An interesting (to me at least) video about washing in medieval times.  The presenter states that the instant saponification which occurs if you put ash on your hands and wet them (or vice versa) can be very hard on the skin. 

I saw something online regarding someone (American) who is known as the Laundry Evangelist.  He suggests using pure sodium percarbonate as a washing aid rather than stuff like Vanish which is a mixture of sodium percarbonate and sodium carbonate (and maybe other additives).  I understood the logic but isn't sodium percarbonate very flammable?

Sodium percarbonate: it's a solid white crystalline substance that isn't flammable and is fairly inert. If dissolved in water it will produce a weak solution of sodium peroxide but that too is not flammable as it's basically still just slightly alkaline water. Indeed one can readily buy dilute (typically about 5% concentration) hydrogen peroxide water-based solution from pharmacists, for use as an antiseptic (particularly for mouth and gum problems) or for use as a mild whitening agent for fabric, teeth, hair etc, hence "peroxide blonde". Unlike chlorine-based "bleaches" it works as an antiseptic and whitening agent by releasing oxygen gas, which is why when used as a mouth wash the enzymes in your saliva causes it to rapidly make oxygen and so make your saliva foam. Oxygen isn't of course dangerous or flammable in itself but it is necessary if other flammable things are to ignite and burn. However unless you are dealing with huge quantities - and I mean really enormous industrial quantities of the stuff - the amount of oxygen that can be generated from hydrogen peroxide in a water solution, or by directly dissolving sodium percarbonate into water to make a hydrogen peroxide solution, is really so small and the reactions so slow, that I can't see it being any danger at all, at least not as a fire risk.

Thanks for explaining things, MM.  I think I got the idea it was flammable because the packets say 'danger'.  I'm not planning on eating it!!!!  At the moment I have some stuff like Vanish but not the same brand which is a combination of sodium percarbonate, sodium carbonate and a small amount of surfactant(s).

I use Vanish myself, or rather a cheaper equivalent, as it seems to work on most stains - I didn't know it was based on sodium percarbonate. However for really stubborn stains, such as from people who have taken the opportunity while staying here to dye their hair and so stain my white cotton pillow-cases rather than their own (grrr), I still have to resort to using well-diluted sodium hyperchlorite bleach (although if the solution is too strong or I soak for too long I've found it risks making the cotton fibres brittle and so eventually, although probably several washes later, the whole fabric just falls apart). Whatever did people do before industrially-made bleaching agents, especially when it was fashionable for men to put macassar oil on their hair? I suppose everyone just had to accept persistent stains and slightly grey or beige 'whites'.

MM, the laundry evangelist isn't a real pastor by the way.  It's just the name of his TV show I think.

I've found from surfing t'internet that it seems that the "Per" in Sodium Percabonate is where the first syllable of the name of "Persil" comes from (and there was me thinking it was from the French for parsley).  According to the website I'm linking Persil was the first commercial detergent.  I didn't know that.  https://www.mcgill.ca/oss/article/history-general-science/worlds-first-commercially-available-laundry-powder

Hoping nord is well but not following this at the moment - do not wish to bring about  a set back. So here I am on Res Hist with a household hint. I discovered Hg can of spray for stains and spots which does wonders for my stuff, anyway. No idea how it works = nor some of their other stuff for kitchen either but am sold on it.
I suspect people of yore were lest bothered by stains and grubby. In very old photos - the like of which nord used to keep us informed with - clothes often look a tad clumpy and less immaculate - shabby, even, anyway, more than film studios wardrobe section would have us believe. In the east many wear white and that cloth is often rolled wet and thunked hard on stones without bleach.......can't see MM down at the local brook doing that somehow. I think my dhobi also used lime juice too - they could also get  'rust' stains out from humid stored linen - but would not reveal how. Their response was muttered about mixtures that I never understood - and was not intended to, either. Our local dry cleaners can get stains out - they use a great deal of money for that.... along with soft mutters tinged with scorn.

LadyinRetirement wrote:

I've found from surfing t'internet that it seems that the "Per" in Sodium Percabonate is where the first syllable of the name of "Persil" comes from ...

I think Persil was also one of the first to use synthetic enzymes in laundry detergent. Fabric-cleaning enzymes had been discoved by the German chemist Otto Röhm in around 1914 but they did not become widespread in detergents until stable synthetic enzymes were developed in the late 1950s. These enzymes (essentially catalysts, if you recall your school chemistry) enhance cleaning and stain removal by aiding the break down of proteins (eg in blood and egg) and of starch, fats, oils and cellulose (eg in vegetable stains). They perform well at relatively cool temperatures, which also makes them cheaper to use by removing the need for hot water. They do however have a tendency to beak down dyes (whether synthetic or natural) and so can cause fading.

I was recently interested to discover that one of the most natural enzyme-containing solvents and the one that has surely been in use the longest - human saliva - is still recognised as one of the best agents for gently cleaning some things. Rubbing with a spit-moistened, unbleached-cotton swab is a standard museum conservation method for cleaning grime from such delicate articles as painted wood, ivory, marble, plaster etc, for example here when cleaning a 2,700 year old Egyptian mummy-case:

I don't do the shopping anymore and I wondered if you could still buy Persil. But I see it is still NZ's best-selling laundry detergent.

Pesil still on the shelves here, Caro


MM, very interesting about  'spit and polish' being a truth. I saw the routine used on shoes as a child but thought it just a make shift cleaner. My father claimed it worked on army boots. You do    find some interesting stuff, MM.

Saffron stains are the worst P. If you can get some spittle on it strait away then that can help. As a prime dye, however, saffron tends to makes a mockery of many commercial 'stain removers'.

I'm always fascinated by brand loyalties and particularly with regard to soap powder. I hadn't realised how old Persil was until Meles' post. Mrs V swears by it - literally - I once made the mistake of bringing home a box of Daz ...

Re: the name for Persil - I've looked again and looks like the first syllable comes from perborate rather than percarborate. The 'sil' part of the name came from silicate.

I've heard that if one can use one's own saliva on a stain from one's own blood it is effective.

Thinking of loyalty to brands, my Mum used Persil and Surf while I was growing up though I don't recall which she used for what items. She used Lux soap for items needing a gentler wash.  I haven't seen Lux for ages.  The formulas for laundry powders are adapted all the time and I went off Persil/Surf eventually.  I've been getting the Co-op's own brand detergent which has the dancing bunny (no tests on animals since the 1990s) and use Dri-pak's liquid soap flakes (bought online) for woollens etc.  There's a soap powder called Acdo that I like but the price has shot up......and again seems to be only available online.

Pears soap is still around over two hundred years after the company was started, albeit it is now manufactured in India by a subsiduary of Unilever. Andrew Pears, originally from a Cornish farming family, moved to London and in 1789 established an up-market barber's shop in Gerrard Street, Soho. Noticing that many of the commercially made soaps and other beauty products were particularly harsh or even poisonous (many popular skin-whitening products even contained arsenic or lead) Pears set out to produce his own, milder cosmetic products. He eventually managed to produce a gentle soap by mixing alkali with glycerine which he then purified by disolving in alcohol, distilling the result and shaping the residue into bars. The purity of the soap gave it a novel transparent appearance which provided a marketing advantage and to add to the appeal Pears mixed in rose oil to give an aroma reminiscent of an English garden. It was first sold in London in 1807 and proved so popular at his London barber's shop that he resorted to signing every wrapper to guarantee its quality in the face of many inferior imitations.

The Pears Soap company also initiated a number of innovations in sales and marketing. English actress and socialite Lillie Langtry was recruited to become the poster-girl for Pears in 1882, and in doing so she became the first celebrity to endorse a commercial product. In another first the Pears company bought the 1886 painting 'A Child's World' by Sir John Everett Millais, who at the time was one of the most popular artists in Britain. Millais's permission was sought in order to alter the picture by the addition of a bar of Pears Soap so that it could be used for the purposes of advertising. Millais was initially apprehensive at the prospect of his work and his grandson being the subject of commercial exploitation however when he was shown the proofs of the proposed advertisements he grew to appreciate the idea, which portrayed the soap as if the child had used it to make the bubbles, hence the modified painting's usual title 'Bubbles'. The advertisement became so well known that the painting's subject Millais' grandson William Milbourne James, who later rose to the rank of admiral in the Royal Navy, was known as "Bubbles" for the rest of his life.


Bubbles, by John Everett Millais.

As we have discussed above, making soap by mixing alkali (such as lye from wood ash) with fats or oils, had been a regular household task for centuries, however as another point of soapy trivia, in the early seventeenth century making soap at home was made technically illegal in England. During the personal rule of the King Charles I one of the ways in which he attempted to raise money was through the granting of patents to create monopolies, despite government statutes forbidding such action. One such patent was the monopoly of soap production which was overseen by the Lord Treasurer, Richard Weston the Earl of Portland and a group of his friends, all of whom were close allies of the King. As the board of the company were all Catholic sympathisers, the soap became popularly known as as 'Popish Soap' and it was said, at least by anti-Catholic factions, that it not only damaged fabric and washerwomen's hands but also scarred the soul of any that used it.