Recently, soap sales in the UK have more than doubled. This substance has a unique chemical make-up that allows it to get rid of viruses, breaking up bacteria in a short period of time. It has truly been a life-saving straw during fighting against dangerous diseases.

Invented in the ancient world, the first soap was just a paste made from fat and ash. People discovered it while trying to remove the substances with oil from wool, noticing that mixing burnt wood with water made the process easier. Over time, people improved the soap-making process, learning to boil the fat and ash together to create soap before applying it to their cloth. By the Middle Ages, soap makers had started to spring up in Europe, where cloth production was big business. They cut down huge forests to make ash and mixed that ash with whatever fat they had available.

It wasn’t until the 1800s that the cleaning power of soap was properly released. Around that time, illnesses like typhoid (伤寒) and cholera were widespread. Most people didn’t have easy access to running water, and many believed that washing their skin would cause disease. But this was the century of public health, and that was all about to change.

Louis Pasteur proved that viruses made people sick. John Snow noticed that cholera was spread by dirty water and doctors made the link between the degree of hand cleanness and the spread of dangerous diseases. As a result, local governments started to install public health equipment in towns and cities, dealing with waste water properly and supplying their populations with clean water.

Soap makers started to put effort into making gentler soaps for use on skin, adding perfumes and dyes to make their products more appealing. And people finally started using it to wash their hands and bodies, greatly improving their health.