The Origin of China Soap

Soap is the oldest washing product, and its origin is based on an ancient legend:

In the Song Dynasty, a synthetic detergent appeared, which was made by mashing and grinding natural Gleditsia sinensis (also known as Gleditsia sinensis, hanging knife and Gleditsia sinensis) and adding spices to make an orange-sized ball for washing face and bathing, commonly known as "soap ball". Song people carefully recorded in Old Wulin, Volume 6, Little Broker, that there were already merchants specializing in "Soap Troupe" in Lin 'an, Kyoto in the Southern Song Dynasty.

In the Compendium of Materia Medica written by Li Shizhen in the Ming Dynasty, the production method of Gleditsia sinensis was recorded: "Gleditsia sinensis grows in high mountains, with tall trees, leaves such as sandalwood and Gleditsia sinensis, which bloom in May and June, bear three or four inches of pods, are plump and fleshy, contain several sunspots, are as big as fingers, are not round, and are edible.

Picking pods in October, boiling and mashing, white flour fragrant pills, bathing the body, removing dirt and moistening, is better than Gleditsia sinensis. In addition to natural Gleditsia sinensis, plants such as Sapindus mukoraiensis have also spread among the people and become good cleaners.

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Because the ancients used Gleditsia sinensis to wash clothes in the Yellow River valley, and there were no Gleditsia sinensis trees in the Yangtze River valley, they found another tree. Its fruit, like Gleditsia sinensis, can wash clothes, but it is fuller than Gleditsia sinensis, so they named her Gleditsia sinensis, also called Gleditsia sinensis fruit.

Later, when artificial detergents were invented, the word "soap" was still used. Therefore, although there is no thin soap, there is a non-fat soap, which is "Gleditsia sinensis".

Because soap was made and imported from the west, it was called "foreign alkali" at that time. Although "alkali" and soap itself can't be equated, Chinese people, driven by novelty, formally used this name for decades, and it was not until the national industry and commerce made their own soap that they gradually abandoned the word "foreign".

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