Soap making history goes back many millennia. The most basic soap making supplies were those taken from animals and from nature: many people made soap using animal fat and tree ash. There's debate about who invented soap, but the first evidence has been linked to Mesopotamian civilization.
Back before soap was commonly used, the Geeks used a combination of lye and ashes to clean pots and to clean the statues of their gods. Romans used goat's milk as the basis for their soap. They used goat's tallow and beech tree ash to make both hard and soft forms of soap.
One of the first soap plants was in Marseilles because its soil was great for olive trees and vegetable sodas. As time went on, the oil and soda was imported from Spain and Italy. Because of this, soap factories sprung up in both countries. France took on the industry in the twelfth or thirteenth century, and England soon followed suit. French soap was mainly made of olive oil and English soap was made from a variety of ingredients.
The soap industry was expanded or revolutionized when Nicholas Le Blanc developed an inexpensive method to extract soda from salt. Further discoveries and inventions helped making soap easier and expanded its availability and popularity. In 1811, Eugene-Michel Chevreul was the first to determine the exact amount of fat that was necessary to make soap. Before this, people had simply guessed the amount of fat to use. With each new discovery, the industry expanded, as did the type of soap and soap making supplies.
Many of the soaps marketed today are closer to detergents than to soaps because they lather more than soap does. In 1938, the Food, Drug, and Cosmetic Act was passed, which left soap more or less unregulated, compared to other products.
Nowadays, there are tons of soaps on the market. In their homes, people enjoy everything from organic soap making and natural soap making to making luxurious soaps with fancy ingredients and soap making molds.