The History of Soap — From Babylonian Clay to the Soap Opera

It sits beside your sink, cheap, humble and utterly unremarkable — yet this small bar has saved more human lives than most medicines. This documentary traces the surprising four-thousand-year history of soap: from recipes pressed into Babylonian clay tablets and the Roman legend of Mount Sapo, where sacrificial fat and ash supposedly washed down into the Tiber, to the hard white bars perfected in the Islamic golden age and the legendary soap cellars of Aleppo. Follow soap as it becomes law in Marseille under Louis XIV's 1688 standard, a hated luxury under England's soap tax, and an industry after the Leblanc process made soda cheap. Then watch Pears and Lever Brothers turn it into advertising's first empire, discover why daytime dramas are called soap operas, and see how soap, meeting the germ theory, became humanity's cheapest vaccine. This is the complete history of soap — the humble bar that changed the world. CHAPTERS 00:00 Welcome to History Lens 00:05 The First Recipe — Babylon's Clay Tablets 01:04 Mount Sapo — Rome's Accidental Soap 01:51 Aleppo — Soap of the Islamic Golden Age 02:42 Marseille 1688 — The King's Soap Standard 03:30 The Hated Soap Tax — England 04:18 Leblanc — Soda Makes Soap Cheap 05:07 Pears and Lever — Advertising's First Empire 05:58 Soap Operas — Sponsored by Soap 06:45 Liquid Soap and the Detergent Age 07:38 Soap Meets the Germ Theory 08:32 The Humble Bar That Changed the World #history #soap #documentary #historyofsoap Subscribe to History Lens for more amazing history documentaries!