An excavation of ancient Babylon revealed evidence that Babylonians were making soap around 2800 B.C. Babylonians were the first one to master the art of soap making. They made soap from fats boiled with ashes. Soap was used in cleaning wool and cotton used in textile manufacture and was used medicinally for at least 5000 years.

The story of what we call shampoo is a story that reaches back less than a century, but the story of washing our hair is thousands of years old, or as long as we’ve had hair to wash. Until modern science put the process under a microscope, hair was maintained with various inventions using readily available ingredients, animal, vegetable, and mineral.

People have been making and using soaps for thousands of years through different methods, with varying levels of effectiveness and a vast variety of ingredients. One traditional method that has been used to make soap involves using white wood ashes and a fat or an oil. The resulting concoction is a strong, lye based soapy product that actually is very effective in cutting through grease found in pots and pans. It can also be further refined into bars for modern use. Another method of soap making involves caustic soda, which has some serious health risks because it is a strong alkali.