CHAPTER   ONE
1.0     INTRODUCTION
1.1     BACKGROUND
Soap is the earliest detergent know to man and apparently was first made by the Romans from animal fats and oil and wood ash which is an alkali that contains potassium carbonate, sodium, potassium hydroxide called potash leached from the wood ash (Robert, 1994).  It is also an unsaturated ester since an ester can be split into an alcohol and a carboxylic acid by hydrolysis.  Meaning that it does not contain all the solutes that can be dissolve at a particular temperature (Kirt Othmer, 1994).  Also soap is a metallic salt of a fatty acid because if a metallic base is used in the hydrolysis instead of water, the metallic salt of the carboxylic acid is obtained, not the acid because carboxylic acid are weak acid which dissociates only slightly in solution
(Hou, 1992).
1.2     Soap can be defined as the sodium or potassium salt of fatty acids, made by heating fats and oil with caustic soda or caustic potash respectively (Cook 1990).
Most soap was manufactured by an alkaline hydrolysis reaction called the Saponification, which is the reaction of fats and oil with alkali.
C3H5 (COOR)3   +   3KOH                3KOOCR   +   C3H5  (OH)
(where R – represent the hydrocarbon chain) also according to the equation above, soaps was made in huge keittes into which fat and oil and alkali were piped and heated until it boils vigorously.
Saponification is the process used in making soap since ancient times, soaps have been made from vegetable and animal oil and fats looked in alkali (Kott, NaoH) (Steiner, 1990).  Soap and detergent are both cleaning agents and both work in the same way, but soap cleanse with the natural occurring materials such as animal fat and wood ash.
1.3     TYPES OF SOAP
In the world of soap manufacturing, there are basically three types of soap, under them they are classified according to their categories:
(1)     Foreign Soap
These are soap that is medically investigated to cure a skin diseases.  Examples:
(a)     Medicated soap
i.        Antiseptic soap
ii.       Germicidic soap
iii.      Herbal soap
(b)     Tablets Soap
These are soap that is operated and purified, dyes and perfumed added, to make the skin mild.
Example:    i.        Toilet Soap
ii.       Bar Soap
(c)      Local Soap
These are meant for a purpose not medically investigated but meant for cleaning ability.
a.       Black soap
b.       Sida Soap.
But here we are basically on the one made from Local raw material, which is the black soap (Ncha Nkota).