Even in ancient times, people cared for cleanliness and hygiene, because they understood that the ingestion of various germs and dirt can provoke illnesses and worsening well-being. Therefore, civilizations tried to invent ways to quickly and effectively remove all unwanted substances from the skin, and almost all came to the conclusion that there is nothing safer than washing the skin with soap under warm water.
Soap history
Almost immediately, people realized that water helps wash dirt from the skin, and began to actively use it for this purpose. However, the fluid was not always enough to wash away the dirt to a shine. This prompted the search for different ways to remove foreign substances as efficiently as possible.
About 2,800 BC, the Babylonians and Sumerians invented the first soap samples. The composition of the product was of natural origin: for the manufacture of used fat of birds and animals, adding some impurities. This tool quickly “went into the people” and was borrowed by other civilizations.
Interesting fact: the word “soap” was first coined in ancient Rome. Its inhabitants called the resulting product “sapo”. Over time, the word has undergone some changes, has turned into “soap” in English and is still used around the world in this form.
Hygiene concept
Despite the fact that people have been using soap for several thousand years, the concept of hygiene appeared only at the beginning of the 19th century.Doctor Nikolai Semashko coined the term and founded the world's first university department, whose teachers began to teach the basics of hygiene.
The subject helped to master the basic terms and concepts necessary to maintain cleanliness. Semashko also searched for the most effective cleaning methods and invented tools and components to help with this.
How does soap wash away dirt?
The principle of the soap, due to which it cleanses the skin well, is quite simple. Due to its composition, soap molecules cling well to dirt and water. Thus, when a person applies soap on a certain surface, particles of the latter stick to unwanted substances, forming a single whole with them. When the soaped surface is washed off with water, these particles cling to the water, literally tear off the dirt and drag it away after the general flow. After that, the coating becomes clean.
However, dirt and bacteria are not always washed off under a clean first time. Sometimes the procedure for applying and washing soap is required to be repeated several times. And over time, people noticed that the substance is much better washed off with warm water than cold.
Why is soap washed off more easily with warm water?
To answer this question, one should turn to physics. Everything around consists of the smallest molecules that are in continuous motion. Moreover, the higher the temperature, the greater the fluctuations in space and the higher the number of collisions between them.
Therefore, when heated, some objects become softer, for example, clay.With increasing temperature, the distances between the molecules increase, and the substance loses its strength.
In the situation with soap, something similar happens. Molecules of warm water are much more mobile and active than in cold ones. They move faster and travel long distances. Therefore, when a warm liquid enters a soapy surface, it more actively “bombards” soap and dirt with molecules, literally sweeping them away. Soap particles cling more actively to a heated liquid than to a cold one.
Also, over the past decades, different types of soap have appeared in composition. For example: household, household, liquid, etc. Also, some people make soap at home. Each has unique properties for cleaning from dirt, but there is one fact that unites them: they all exhibit better properties under hot water.
Soap is washed off more easily with warm water, because its molecules have more energy. They catch on soap particles that have already absorbed dirt and wash them off, leaving the surface clean.
