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Latha Venkatraman

From water, the earliest known cleanser, soap has had a long and illustrious journey. Latha Venkatraman looks around.

QUITE likely that water would have been the original cleanser known to humankind. Simple as it may sound, the liquid's use for the purpose has roots in science. Recent news reports cited an Australian National University's finding that water could be used as a cleanser after a process called de-gassing, which takes out all bubbles. Degassed water removes oily and greasy stains much better than even the strongest washing powders, the report had said.

Back to the past. As the virtues of personal cleanliness slowly set in, herbs provided people in the tropics a cleaning medium while elsewhere, certain kinds of clay or earth were mixed with oil for the purpose.

A peek into the history of soap points to an ancient Roman legend that the water that flowed down Mount Sapo, where animals were sacrificed, cleaned well. It could be that the melted animal fat washed down from the sacrificial spot mingled with the clay to make a cleansing material.

So it was that a combination of animal fat, clay and water emerged as a cleanser. Mixing oil with potash and water resulted in soap. With time, this formula evolved.

Pears was one of the earliest soap brands. Launched in 1789 in London, it was oval in shape and transparent. Today, it continues to be oval and transparent.

Lifebuoy was the next branded soap to follow, launched by Lever Brothers in 1895. It was positioned as a health soap because of its carbolic acid content.

Lifebuoy was relaunched by Hindustan Lever Ltd in 2002. But it was no longer a carbolic soap with cresylic perfume. "It is now a milled toilet soap with a new health fragrance. The new formulation has an ingredient, Active-B, which offers protection against germs, which can cause stomach infection, eye infection and infections in cuts and bruises," HLL had said at the time of relaunch.

HLL is among the leading soap manufacturers. Its other leading brands include Liril, Lux and Breeze. Lux is yet another of the company's long-standing brands, launched in 1905. Liril was launched in 1975. Positioned as a youthful soap, it took advertising to a new level. Godrej Consumer Products Ltd also has brands such as Cinthol and Godrej No 1, which have been around for several years. More recently, it launched FairGlow.

Nirma entered the soap market in 1992 with the launch of Nirma Bath Soap, a red carbolic soap to combat Lifebuoy. Thereafter, it launched Nirma Beauty Soap.

Though some of the brands are national their sales do have a regional skew, sometimes international as in the case of Chandrika and Mysore Sandal. In recent years, several regional brands have become popular, such as Medimix and Jeeva. Today, there are soap brands for every price point.

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