As early as the pre-Qin to Qin and Han dynasties, people knew how to "take local materials" and get "cleaning liquid" for washing and shampooing without extra money. Book of rites? Inside, he said, "Yu", and Tang Kong called it, "Mu, Mu Fa also; Horseshoe crab, wash your face. Take the sweat of Su Liang. " It turns out that the ancients simply washed their faces and shampoos with the "pan juice" of grains. The so-called "pan juice", in fact, nothing special, is the common rice washing water today. According to historical records? "Family of consorts" records that when Dou Shi, the empress of the Chinese Emperor, was young, her brother Dou Anguo bought her from a trafficker who bought and sold human beings because of her poor family. When leaving, Dou Shi begged Mipan to help his brother wash his hair. To this day, many people still believe that Taomi water is effective for cleaning skin. Next time you cook, maybe you can consider whether to let the rice washing water run away gently.
As for washing clothes, the ancients used another kind of "cleaner"-grey water. Plant ash's water extract. "Flower King Gong Ji" once mentioned that silk must be "soaked in water" before dyeing. Note: "Water is also filled with ash." Book of rites? Neize said: "The crown is dirty and gray; The clothes are dirty and gray. "The ancient people used plant ash's soaking liquid to wash clothes. Because plant ash contains potassium carbonate, it can be decontaminated. This easy-to-use detergent was very common in ancient times.
Until modern times, some remote villages in China still used plant ash water to wash clothes, which was regarded as the longest-used detergent in ancient China.
In addition, there is a mixed detergent. According to "Flower King Gong Ji", "It is the fruit of all kinds of instruments to practice silks and use columns as ashes to make silks flourish." The so-called slug refers to shell ash, which contains calcium hydroxide and can react with "wood ash" to generate potassium hydroxide. When washing silk products with its aqueous solution, it will react with the oil attached to the silk surface to generate potassium soap, which can make the silk simple and bright. It seems that as early as 2300 years ago, our people have been using the function of soap liquid.
In the 4th century, that is, the Wei and Jin Dynasties, some new detergents appeared-Gleditsia sinensis and bath beans. Gleditsia sinensis, also known as Gleditsia sinensis, is the fruit of Gleditsia sinensis, a leguminous plant. Shennong's Classic of Materia Medica in Han Dynasty has listed this very common plant as medicine. Gleditsia sinensis contains saponin, and its aqueous solution can produce foam and has decontamination performance. At that time, there were shops selling Gleditsia sinensis in the society, which shows that people generally adopted it at that time. Among all kinds of Gleditsia sinensis, "Gleditsia sinensis" has the worst quality, weak decontamination ability and no water; Gleditsia sinensis has strong decontamination ability and strong smell. Later, people further mashed the seeds of Gleditsia sinensis to make a ball, the size of an orange, which was used for washing face and body, commonly known as "soap ball". In the Ming Dynasty, Li Shizhen's Compendium of Materia Medica also recorded its production method: "Picking pods in October, mashing them, taking white flour incense as pills, and bathing noodles are dirtier and more greasy than Gleditsia sinensis." Compared with the present soap, the appearance is quite similar.
During the Wei and Jin Dynasties, there was also a detergent called "bath beans". Sun Simiao's Thousand Women and Thousand Women's Wings in the Tang Dynasty recorded that the dirty blood of pig pancreas was washed, the fat was torn off, ground into paste, and then bean powder and spices were added, mixed evenly and naturally dried to form bath beans for washing. Who first thought of using pig pancreas to remove dirt? No one knows yet, but he must be a brilliant man. In the process of making bath beans, the pig pancreas was ground to enhance the secretion of digestive enzymes contained in the pancreas. Mixed soybean powder contains saponin and lecithin, which has the function of enhancing foaming power and emulsifying power, not only enhancing washing ability, but also moisturizing skin. It was a relatively high-quality detergent at that time. However, because pig pancreas is really difficult to obtain in large quantities, bath beans have not been widely promoted and are only used by a few upper-class aristocrats. Later, people improved the production technology of bath beans. They added sugar when grinding pig pancreas, replaced bean flour with sodium carbonate (soda ash) and added melted pig fat. After mixing evenly, they press it into a ball or block, which is the "pancreas". The pancreas is very similar to soap today in chemical composition. And the variety of products is more diverse, such as osmanthus, rose pancreas, etc ... which is very similar to all kinds of soaps with different scents today.
In addition, the alkali and tea bran (commonly known as tea seed cake) that people still use today have been used in ancient China. Although the earliest date of use is unknown, it was widely used in Ming and Qing dynasties at the latest. Alkali is sodium carbonate crystal, and tea bran is a by-product of rapeseed oil pressing. The juice extracted by mashing with water contains saponin, which also has a good descaling effect.
In short, ancient China people had many effective personal and clothing cleaning methods, and many of them were cheap and environmentally friendly!