the handmade soap masters

It has been interesting to follow the developments of the debate on whether palm oil can be considered an “acceptable” soapmaking oil. As shown on TV, if we want orangutans to survive, we must immediately stop buying anything containing palm oil.

Apparently, some Australian TV station recently broadcast a documentary, denouncing how orangutans have become endangered due to unethical palm “farming” practices. Not owning a TV, I did not see the show, but I have been witnessing how the waves from that piece of Australian “news” are rippling through the vast international audiences of several soapmaking mailing list. Dozens of well-meaning (albeit mis-informed) Aussie soapers and supposedly eco-conscious activists have promptly reacted to the documentary by launching a (quite vicious) campaign against “those terrible soaps made by some, which contain bad palm oil, which kills those poor, lovely orangutans”. As if the consequences of “corporate farming” practices - the economically rational, multicultural, politically correct answer to global markets and increasingly rampant consumerism - stopped with the orangutans. I for one am willing to bet that the poor orangutans would have probably been wiped out altogether, by the time the documentary was watched (and exploited) in Australia in late 2006.

The question whether palm oil is indeed a more ethical option than animal fats, which it traditionally replaces in (oh so trendy) “vegetable only” soaps, is in fact several years old. More tropical forests and a larger number of orangutans could have been saved, if a sufficiently representative group of (so called) eco-conscious soapers stopped to listen and act years ago, when a few of us tried to raise awareness on the destruction of tropical forests caused by galloping demands for cheap farmland, yielding cheap raw materials for personal (as well as industry) uses.

Every year for over thirty years now, millions of hectares of jungle have been “reclaimed”, “redeveloped” and replaced by intensive farming schemes. With our support to consumerism and fast food, we have all contributed to the destruction. And those who now, by pointing the finger at palm oil users “because they kill orangutans”, insist on one small aspect of a much bigger problem, are not really doing much to reverse the destructive trend that threatens the whole world - at least as we know it.

Within the broader context of “responsible choices”, replacing palm oil is certainly a sensible step towards sustainable soapmaking. How to do it is the subject of my next article.

Several sources maintain that soap was first discovered at a place called Mount Sapo (or Mount Sappo), located in or nearby Rome. Most contemporary (Internet) soapmakers believe this Roman legend explains the origins of soap. But they are wrong - or rather, they have been wronged by misinformed marketing media.

According to the Roman legend myth (where “myth” is the correct name for the historical lie it covers), soap was first discovered at a place called Mount Sapo (or Mount Sappo), located in or nearby Rome. Here goes the popular “Roman legend”: While pouring out into the river the dirty ash-laden water where they had washed their laundry, a group of Roman washerwomen noticed a lathery scum develop where their discarded waters met the fat-laden waters coming from the cleaning of a sacrificial altar.
In some versions, the washerwomen were kneeling at the river’s edge, rubbing their laundry with fireplace ashes, while a High Priestess at the nearby temple was wiping down the grease that had stuck to the altar after one of the animal sacrifices, which were so popular back in those times. So when the grease met the ash-laden waters, a rich lather developed, and everybody immediately recognised soap - with the Latin word for soap, sapo, being chosen as a toponimical from the name of the place all this was going on: Mount Sapo (or Mount Sappo according to some “experts”).

This story is pictoresque, romantic, and completely fantastic. And yet, it sounds so perfectly “true” in our media-numbed society, that even the American Soap And Detergent Association has been (incredibly) reporting it as “The Origins of Soap”!

There are several details that give away the Mount Sapo story as not being historically reliable. In particular,

1. There is no Mount Sapo or Mount Sappo in or around Rome, nor there has ever been.
2. It is not enough for fats and fireplace ashes to occasionally and surreptitiously meet in the waters of a river, for them to produce soap.
3. According to Roman historians, “sapo” (the Latin word for soap) was a product used by the Germans as a hair dye. It is not clear whether “sapo” was the Latin translation of the Celtic term, “saipo”, or vice-versa.

An honest history of soap, with documented reference sources and the acknowledgement that the annals of history do not seem to satisfy all possible questions, is included in the book Soap Naturally - Ingredients, methods and recipes for natural handmade soap (Patrizia Garzena, Marina Tadiello), which is recommended reading for anybody who is serious about making good soap.