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The Saponaria Almanac

A field guide to making historical soap — safely

• 1 · A short history of soap
• 2 · The science of saponification
• 3 · Lye safety and the wood-ash tradition

Soap is older than most of the empires that used it. Clay tablets from Babylon, around 2800 BCE, describe boiling fats with ashes — the same chemistry your grandmother's lye soap relied on, and the same chemistry this almanac will teach you to control.