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Soaps are a combination of fats with lye. Legend has it that soap was
discovered in Rome under Mount Sapos, where the ashes from sacrificial pyres would mix with the fats of sacrificed animals and wash downstream into a creek that became the place of choice for Romans doing their laundry. This story is most likely apocryphal, since there is documented use of soap as far back as 2500 B.C., way before the creation of the Roman Empire. Nonetheless, it does suggest how soap was probably first discovered --- or rather, created.
For centuries, leftover fats from the farm and kitchen were the ingredient of choice for soapmaking. Soapmaking was a task performed only once or twice a year, either in the home or by a village soapmaker. Lye was usually obtained by leaching water through wood ashes and collecting it in a pail under the ash box. Softer soaps were developed later based on vegetable fats, and often made use of farm ingredients such as milk, honey, herbs, flowers, and beeswax. Think lavender!
Many family farms produce soap free of the scary chemical additives that are included in most mass-produced soap.
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