Selection of soaps, c 1890-1914.

From left to right: 'Queen's Honey' soap, 'Sunlight' soap and 'Lifebuoy' soap. The Queen's Honey soap has pictures of Queen Victoria, Buckingham Palace and Windsor Castle. The manufacturers recommended it for household and laundry use. Sunlight soap was produced by the immensely succesful company, Lever Brothers of Port Sunlight in Liverpool. The company was founded by two brothers who bought a small soap works in Warrington in 1885 and used vegetable oils like palm oil, rather than tallow, to produce good quality soap. At the time, soap production was very fragmented and of variable quality. The manufacturers of Lifebuoy recommended their disinfectant and antiseptic soap for household tasks, and claimed that it aided long life, health and happines.