#Soap July 5

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Today is Day 5 of the 30-Day Ingredient Coach4aday Challenge with the focus on what goes into a bar of SOAP.

Historians tell us that the art of making SOAP dates back to 2800 BC. Evidence points to the Babylonians, Mesopotamians, Egyptians, as well as the ancient Greeks and Romans with and understanding on how to make it. Recipes involved mixing fat, oils and salts. It wasn’t made and used for bathing and personal hygiene but was rather produced for cleaning cooking utensils or goods.

Soap for Personal Hygiene

Soap’s original purpose was to clean non-human items, but it wasn’t until the 1800’s that using it to clean our bodies became a thing. Making products exclusively for personal hygiene became intentional. The ingredients became less harsh.

Manufacturing today of bars of soap does involve chemistry. Going to take a look at popular product called Dove’s Original Beauty Bar.

Dove Original Beauty Bar

Here are the ingredients with one that I wanted to learn more about highlighted in yellow.

Cocamidopropyl Betaine

One ingredient you see as part of many soap bars is Cocamidopropyl Betaine. For thousands of years to manufacture you needed fats, oils, and salt. Cocamidopropyl gets derived from coconut oil.

It has benefits in three areas.

  1. When combined with water it produces a rich lather
  2. It helps hydrate the skin thanks to the coconut oil.
  3. It helps make any product feel creamier because it can thicken or increase the viscosity.

Coach4aday

My purpose in life is to coach. I am a former collegiate basketball coach, director of athletics, and chief of staff. I worked at four NCAA Division I & II universities during my career. At each campus I learned timeless lessons on teamwork and leadership. Today my passion is coaching others on what it takes to lead, serve, and succeed.

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