Soap Cleanliness

CHAPTER 1

INTRODUCTION

1.1 GENERAL INTRODUCTION

One item that has been key to man’s personal cleanliness is soap. Soap is a vital part of man’s day to day activities from taking baths to laundry. The manufacture of liquid soaps in times past were not too popular in Ghana and as a result most liquid soaps on the Ghanaian market were imported.

Soap, which comes in solid bars and/or also in the form of thick liquid. is surfactant used in combination with water for laundry work. Soap is formed when sodium or potassium salts react with long chain fatty acids.it sis produced through a process known as saponification reaction by reacting fats with a base. In the presence of a base, the fat is hydrolysed yielding glycerol and crude soap. (Miller, 1994)

The Ancient Babylonians were the first to invent soap around 2800 BC. These people found out that, combining fats for instance animal fats with wood ash and water produced soap-like substances capable of cleaning. Their first soap manufactured was used in the textile industry to wash wool. Medically, it was also used to treat skin diseases. Common soap bars were invented around the 19th century (Wilcox, 2000).

The Ebbers papyrus indicates that, around 1550 BC, animal and vegetable oils were put together with salts of base to produce soap by the early Egyptians (Wilcox, 2000).

During the reign of Nabonidus, that is between 556 and 539 BC, soap recipes normally consisted of uhulu i.e. ashes, oil e.g. cypress and seed oil e.g. sesame for washing the stones for the female servants" (Ophardt, 2003)

According to one school of thought, the name soap was from one Mount Sapo, where the early Romans offered animal sacrifices. Soap was produced from a mixture of water, animal tallow and ashes from fires associated with these sacrifices. “Sapo”, a Latin word which meaning "soap"; was borrowed from a language of German origin and it’s akin to the Latin sebum, "tallow", which appears in Pliny the Elder 's account. The sacrifices were taken by the humans rather than the gods (Wilcox,

The project seeks to assess the feasibility in employing combination of oils in the manufacture of liquid soap. The oils employed were coconut, olive and soybean. These oils were chosen based on factors such as cost and availability among others. Coconut oil is readily available and relatively cheaper. It also produces soaps with high foaming and cleansing ability and produces stable lather. Olive oil though quite expensive is readily available and has a peculiar property of having a moisturizing effect on the skin. Soybean is relatively cheaper and readily available but is not normally used in soap production because it has no peculiar properties but it can be combined with other oils to produce quality soap.

In order to assess the quality of the oils, physiochemical tests were carried out on the oils. These analytical parameters included relative density, acid value and saponification value. Most oils on the market are of low quality due to adulteration. The need for these tests is very imperative to carry out these tests on the oils to ascertain its quality and investigate its suitability for