You won't see a newspaper article like this nowadays

[Rod Speed]

Neither does the EU but all attempted that anyway

[Rod Speed]

In fact they used the soap from the Gauls once they came across it

[Rod Speed]

But the real difference is that that doesnt happen in western europe or north america anymore. Its taking longer for the rest to come to their senses.

[Rod Speed]

Bullshit.

[alan_m]

and the poor old Ostrich died for nothing.

[Colin Bignell]

Soap made from tallow and ashes is what Elizabethans called grey soap. Apparently it was quite smelly, presumably because of the tallow.

[The Natural Philosopher]

Lye soap could be made from any fat. Lye is simply ashes and water mixed, and strained.

[Colin Bignell]

Indeed, but the fat chosen does affect the finished product. They also had black soap, made from train oil, extracted from whales. That was also smelly and only used on the coarsest cloths. Their highest quality soap, used for lawn and other fine fabrics, was imported from Castile and made using olive oil.

[Tim Streater]

Which presumably gives you some weak solution of potassium hydroxide. Mix that with any fat to make soap.

[Ottavio Caruso]

Am 13/03/2024 um 17:03 schrieb Custos Custodum:

It speaks volumes that you mistake baths for latrines. After all, you folks don't use the bidet.

[alan_m]

I assume that bidets suffer from the same plumbing problems where hot/warm water takes a while to get to the device if the pipe run length is medium/long from the boiler or tank.

[Ottavio Caruso]

Confessing I am not a bidet fundamentalist, I tend to think a bidet should be performed at either cold or just lukewarm/tepid. I wouldn't want 60 C spluttered over my precious. Bath is different, I want it really hot.

[Custos Custodum]

No mistake - just contrasting good and bad ideas. And it's not true that we are "soap dodgers". In fact, we have soaps for every part of the body, e.g.:

can use it on your face as well.