Natural vs. Commercial: A Brief History Of Skincare.
In an industry where many companies fill their products with cheap chemicals, and preservatives in order to boost profits, we’re proud to be a company that is part of a movement that rejects this business practice and is returning to natures ingredients.
Historical Overview
Evidence of soap making and use can be found all the way back 2800 B.C. by the Babylonians. The clay cylinders they created their cleansing mixtures in were inscribed with what roughly translates to “Fats boiled with ashes”, the earliest method of soap making. An ancient Egyptian herbal medicinal document roughly from the year 1500 B.C. titled “Ebers papyrus” describes mixing animal, or vegtable fats with alkaline salts in order to create a substance for washing skin, and treating skin diseases. Soap is actually named after an ancient Roman Legend taking place on Mount Sapo. This legend describes rain washing down the mountain side and mixing with animal fats and ashes, creating a clay like mixture that aided in cleaning. Until WWI soap was made by saponifying animal, and or vegetable fats with sodium hydroxide. However, a shortage of animal and vegetable fats caused by the war pushed chemists to experiment with other compounds that could be used for cleaning. (Cleaning Institute) Around the same time Proctor and Gamble, one of the first and largest soap companies, began their marketing push of “detergents clean better.” (NYT) The rest was history, and after WW2 detergents took over the cleansing market. In fact, most commercial “soaps” aren’t even classified as soap by the FDA, but rather synthetic cleansing detergents.
Soap Vs. Man Made Cleaning Products
According to Nyco, a company that manufactures detergents “Soaps are made from natural ingredients, such as plant oils (coconut, vegetable, palm, pine) or acids derived from animal fat. Detergents, on the other hand, are synthetic, man-made derivatives.(Nyco)” Modern day skincare has become a chemical cocktail of synthetic detergents, preservatives, plasticizers, dyes and who knows what else. One can only guess as to the reason that companies decided to pursue these ingredients instead of staying with time tested methods. Perhaps it was the “man knows best” attitude of the early 1900s as scientific development began to exponentially increase. It was around this time that nearly everything we knew about life was changing. People moved from farms, into the city, and the companies that so many began to work for not only began changing the ingredients in our food, but started to develop new ingredients all together. The skincare industry is no exception, and unfortunately, even as a growing movement develops that demands accountability for what we put in our bodies; What we put on our bodies has not received the same spotlight. Fortunately, there is a solution, and it won’t come from government regulation, or anybody else: it comes from you. Support the companies that share your same values, and do your best to be an advocate for what you believe.
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