It has been claimed that the ruins of Pompeii have revealed the presence of a handmade soap making factory. Many people have interpreted this as fact in otherwise reputable books about the history of handmade soap and soap making. However, the substance found was probably a soapy mineral (soapstone) and not what was first thought.

Another popular story is that the word soap is derived from "Mount Sapo", a place where animals were sacrificed by Romans to the gods. Rain water would send a mixture of the animal fats (tallow) and wood ash down the mountain to the river beneath where people were cleaning their garments. Unfortunately, there is no evidence to suggest that Mount Sapo exists nor of the legend which claims truth to the tale.

The truth about soap is that no-one really knows just when it was discovered. An early reference to handmade soap is written on sumerian clay tablets dated about 2500 bc. The early Romans used hot water to bath and scraped their bodies with a tool called a strigil and it is believed that the Romans then acquired their soap making knowledge from the Gauls during the conquests of Julius Caesar.

One of the most well known early soaps is the Pears soap. Andrew Pears was a barber in London in the early 19th century and as his business grew he started to fashion his own handmade creams and lotions. The soaps around at the time were often crude so Andrew started to experiment with his own skin care products. He discovered that when a regular soap was dissolved in alcohol the resulting mixture was transparent and very mild . And so mass production began with the still popular Pears transparent soap.