Early history of keeping clean

Prehistoric times:

●   water was used to wash off

Ancient Babylon

●   soap-like material found in  cylinders

Ancient Greece:

●   people cleaned themselves with sand and other substances

●   used a strigil – scraper made of 

●   washed clothes in streams

Ancient Germany and Gaul:

●   used soap to colour their 

Ancient Rome:

●   animal fat, ashes and clay mixed through action of rain, used for washing clothes

●   from about 312 BC, water carried to Roman  by aqueducts

Europe in Middle Ages:

●   decline in bathing contributed to occurrence of 

●    began to be added to soap

Europe from 17th century:

●   1600s: cleanliness and bathing started becoming usual

●   1791: Leblanc invented a way of making soda ash from 

●   early 1800s: Chevreul turned soapmaking into a 

●   from 1800s, there was no longer a  on soap.