Did I say pure luxury, or did I say it makes it easier?
I did forget that something is obviously 100% vital and indispensable or entirely worthless and void of functionality.
Early soaps were used for the preparation of textiles rather than personal hygiene.
As early as we invented soap, we actually had the notion that festering in your own rancid body oils is bad far, far earlier. As such, we had ways of dealing with that well before we had soap and people didn’t just immediately switch.
So go ahead and use soap. I certainly do. But if you’re looking to have your mind blown, take a shower and just scrub your skin with a brush, loofah or the palm of your hand and be amazed when you still get clean. If you’re really grimey, you can do what the Romans did and rub yourself with olive oil and scrape it off with a scraper before doing that.
now try doing that with hair. or your hands after vivisecting a corpse, and then delivering a baby. clean up feces and vomit, and then try to get rid of the smell without soap.
every farm worker that works with life stock knows what i am talking about. ever worked on an engine, then tried to clean your hands with water or oliveoil?
I guess the oil has merits, since certain oils DO have detergent properties.
But if you’re looking to have your mind blown, take a shower and just scrub your skin with a brush, loofah or the palm of your hand and be amazed when you still get clean. If you’re really grimey, you can do what the Romans did and rub yourself with olive oil and scrape it off with a scraper before doing that.
I will try that, thanks.
You are right about one thing: if you are healthy, the skin will provide everything it needs to take care of itself. you ever wondered why kids don’t stink, have easy to wipe bottoms, and don’t need to wash their hair every day, and what have you? its because they are not yet broken like adults are. yes, it is also the hormones; but if you have an adult that really stinks up the place after taking a shover, chances are that their metabolism is out of whack; the skin is full of microorganisms, and they have a kind of balanced relation ship with the skin. if this gets thrown, certain microorganisms will overtake the others, and produce smells like crazy.
As such, we had ways of dealing with that well before we had soap and people didn’t just immediately switch.
That logic is hard to dismiss, that is sure interesting. you are absolutely right. I wonder what they did.
Early soaps were used for the preparation of textiles rather than personal hygiene.
I guess they used it to clean absolutely everything. because soap loosens up fatty bonds. thats why using disinfectant does not get rid of the dead bacteria; they are still on your hands, albeit dead. soap does not kill most of germs, but thy are unable to cling to the skin.
I was in poor regions of africa multiple times; the poorest of the poor would use soap when they could. people are poor, but not stupid. if what you said would work, they would do it, but they buy soap instead.
wikipedia:
Roman Empire
Pliny the Elder, whose writings chronicle life in the first century AD, describes soap as “an invention of the Gauls”.[22] The word sapo, Latin for soap, likely was borrowed from an early Germanic language and is cognate with Latin sebum, “tallow”. It first appears in Pliny the Elder’s account,[23] Historia Naturalis, which discusses the manufacture of soap from tallow and ashes. There he mentions its use in the treatment of scrofulous sores, as well as among the Gauls as a dye to redden hair which the men in Germania were more likely to use than women.[24][25] The Romans avoided washing with harsh soaps before encountering the milder soaps used by the Gauls around 58 BC.[26] Aretaeus of Cappadocia, writing in the 2nd century AD, observes among “Celts, which are men called Gauls, those alkaline substances that are made into balls […] called soap”.[27] The Romans’ preferred method of cleaning the body was to massage oil into the skin and then scrape away both the oil and any dirt with a strigil.[28] The standard design is a curved blade with a handle, all of which is made of metal.[29]
The 2nd-century AD physician Galen describes soap-making using lye and prescribes washing to carry away impurities from the body and clothes. The use of soap for personal cleanliness became increasingly common in this period. According to Galen, the best soaps were Germanic, and soaps from Gaul were second best. Zosimos of Panopolis, circa 300 AD, describes soap and soapmaking.
You’re taking “it’s possible to be clean after bathing without soap” as a way stronger statement than it is.
Do you think I’m saying soap is bad?
No one is talking about hygienic hand washing practices for medicine, food prep, after defecation, or after being coated in tough substances.
We’re in a giant pile of people talking about routing bathing to prevent body odor and the skin issues caused by poor bodily hygiene.
Washing with running water and a scrubbing action is sufficient for that purpose for many people. Bathing without soap is not a guarantee that you will have BO, a rash, skin lesions, or acne.
The Africa point isn’t really the gotcha you think it is. Soap working better faster doesn’t mean that a lack of soap doesn’t work. As you said, when they didn’t have soap they still washed. People are generally interested in being clean, and pragmatic. They’ll clean themselves, and if something helps them get cleaner faster, they’ll use it.
And yup, that passage does document that the Roman empire eschewed soap for personal hygiene until roughly year zero.
Yeah, romans began to use soap at roughly year zero. I wonder why. I wonder why people use deodorant every day, when they just can spray water under their arms.
so thats why soap is one of the oldest chemical inventions : because you dont actually need it. pure luxury.
Did I say pure luxury, or did I say it makes it easier?
I did forget that something is obviously 100% vital and indispensable or entirely worthless and void of functionality.
Early soaps were used for the preparation of textiles rather than personal hygiene.
As early as we invented soap, we actually had the notion that festering in your own rancid body oils is bad far, far earlier. As such, we had ways of dealing with that well before we had soap and people didn’t just immediately switch.
So go ahead and use soap. I certainly do. But if you’re looking to have your mind blown, take a shower and just scrub your skin with a brush, loofah or the palm of your hand and be amazed when you still get clean. If you’re really grimey, you can do what the Romans did and rub yourself with olive oil and scrape it off with a scraper before doing that.
now try doing that with hair. or your hands after vivisecting a corpse, and then delivering a baby. clean up feces and vomit, and then try to get rid of the smell without soap.
every farm worker that works with life stock knows what i am talking about. ever worked on an engine, then tried to clean your hands with water or oliveoil?
I guess the oil has merits, since certain oils DO have detergent properties.
https://www.science.org/doi/10.1126/sciadv.abe7275
But if you’re looking to have your mind blown, take a shower and just scrub your skin with a brush, loofah or the palm of your hand and be amazed when you still get clean. If you’re really grimey, you can do what the Romans did and rub yourself with olive oil and scrape it off with a scraper before doing that.
I will try that, thanks.
You are right about one thing: if you are healthy, the skin will provide everything it needs to take care of itself. you ever wondered why kids don’t stink, have easy to wipe bottoms, and don’t need to wash their hair every day, and what have you? its because they are not yet broken like adults are. yes, it is also the hormones; but if you have an adult that really stinks up the place after taking a shover, chances are that their metabolism is out of whack; the skin is full of microorganisms, and they have a kind of balanced relation ship with the skin. if this gets thrown, certain microorganisms will overtake the others, and produce smells like crazy.
As such, we had ways of dealing with that well before we had soap and people didn’t just immediately switch.
That logic is hard to dismiss, that is sure interesting. you are absolutely right. I wonder what they did.
Early soaps were used for the preparation of textiles rather than personal hygiene.
I guess they used it to clean absolutely everything. because soap loosens up fatty bonds. thats why using disinfectant does not get rid of the dead bacteria; they are still on your hands, albeit dead. soap does not kill most of germs, but thy are unable to cling to the skin.
I was in poor regions of africa multiple times; the poorest of the poor would use soap when they could. people are poor, but not stupid. if what you said would work, they would do it, but they buy soap instead.
wikipedia:
Roman Empire
Pliny the Elder, whose writings chronicle life in the first century AD, describes soap as “an invention of the Gauls”.[22] The word sapo, Latin for soap, likely was borrowed from an early Germanic language and is cognate with Latin sebum, “tallow”. It first appears in Pliny the Elder’s account,[23] Historia Naturalis, which discusses the manufacture of soap from tallow and ashes. There he mentions its use in the treatment of scrofulous sores, as well as among the Gauls as a dye to redden hair which the men in Germania were more likely to use than women.[24][25] The Romans avoided washing with harsh soaps before encountering the milder soaps used by the Gauls around 58 BC.[26] Aretaeus of Cappadocia, writing in the 2nd century AD, observes among “Celts, which are men called Gauls, those alkaline substances that are made into balls […] called soap”.[27] The Romans’ preferred method of cleaning the body was to massage oil into the skin and then scrape away both the oil and any dirt with a strigil.[28] The standard design is a curved blade with a handle, all of which is made of metal.[29]
The 2nd-century AD physician Galen describes soap-making using lye and prescribes washing to carry away impurities from the body and clothes. The use of soap for personal cleanliness became increasingly common in this period. According to Galen, the best soaps were Germanic, and soaps from Gaul were second best. Zosimos of Panopolis, circa 300 AD, describes soap and soapmaking.
You’re taking “it’s possible to be clean after bathing without soap” as a way stronger statement than it is.
Do you think I’m saying soap is bad?
No one is talking about hygienic hand washing practices for medicine, food prep, after defecation, or after being coated in tough substances.
We’re in a giant pile of people talking about routing bathing to prevent body odor and the skin issues caused by poor bodily hygiene.
Washing with running water and a scrubbing action is sufficient for that purpose for many people. Bathing without soap is not a guarantee that you will have BO, a rash, skin lesions, or acne.
The Africa point isn’t really the gotcha you think it is. Soap working better faster doesn’t mean that a lack of soap doesn’t work. As you said, when they didn’t have soap they still washed. People are generally interested in being clean, and pragmatic. They’ll clean themselves, and if something helps them get cleaner faster, they’ll use it.
And yup, that passage does document that the Roman empire eschewed soap for personal hygiene until roughly year zero.
Yeah, romans began to use soap at roughly year zero. I wonder why. I wonder why people use deodorant every day, when they just can spray water under their arms.