Q 01/05

Evidence of soap-like materials being made goes back to around 2800 BC in which ancient civilisation?

A) Ancient Greece

B) The Indus Valley

C) Shang China

D) Babylon

Answer · why

D) Babylon

Proto-soaps mixing fat and alkali turn up in Sumerian, Babylonian and Egyptian texts.

Q 02/05

What is the name of the chemical reaction that turns fats and an alkali such as lye into soap?

A) Fermentation

B) Saponification

C) Emulsification

D) Esterification

Answer · why

B) Saponification

Soap made from pure olive oil is known as Castile or Marseille soap and is prized for its mildness.

Q 03/05

Ivory soap's famous slogan, introduced in 1891, was what?

A) Pure as Snow

B) Softer Than Silk

C) It Floats!

D) Cleans Like Magic

Answer · why

C) It Floats!

The name came from Psalm 45's 'ivory palaces', and its other slogan claimed it was 99 and 44/100 percent pure.

Q 04/05

Sunlight, launched by Lever Brothers in 1884, is described as the world's first what?

A) Machine-safe liquid dish soap

B) Boxed soap flakes for wool

C) Perfumed bath bar for export

D) Packaged, branded laundry soap

Answer · why

D) Packaged, branded laundry soap

Its success named Port Sunlight, the model village Lever built for his workers on the Wirral.

Q 05/05

Persil, launched by Henkel in 1907, took its name from silicate and which bleaching agent?

A) Percarbonate

B) Permanganate

C) Perborate

D) Perchlorate

Answer · why

C) Perborate

It was the first laundry detergent to combine bleach with the detergent, marketed as 'self-acting' to end hand-scrubbing.