Soap has been around for thousands of years yet today it is hard to find any REAL soap at the supermarket. In simpler times people made their own soap with bacon grease. Today it is mass produced in factories synthetically and does not clean as well. Often soap will leave a sticky residue if not rinsed properly. Think of walk out of a shower full of shampoo in your hair.
The first synthetic soaps were made by mixing coconut oil with sulfuric acid, this was called acidic oil. Neutralizing with sodium hydroxide created many of the same products we use everyday like shampoo, toothpaste, and carpet cleaners. Read the label sometime and you may be in for a surprise…
Detergents work by by surrounding soil and floating to the top of the surface of water. They never disperse uniform fashion because of this. Compare this to salt which mixes the same no matter how much you put in each molecule of water will have same amount of salt.
What do soaps do?
- Dissolve oils and dirt
- Suspend oils so water can wash them away
- Detergents gain power with higher PH alkalinity
- Soap works better when diluted with water
