'Bubbles', originally titled 'A Child's World', is an 1886 painting by Sir John Everett Millais (8 June 1829-13 August 1896) and was used over many generations in the advertisements for Pears soap. It was modeled by Millas's five-year-old grandson William Milbourne James and was based on 17th-century Dutch precursors. The painting portrays a young golden-haired boy looking up at a bubble symbolizing the beauty and fragility of life.

Andrew Pears, the son of a farmer, began to experiment with soap purification and managed to produce a gentle soap based on glycerine and other natural products. It is now made in India by Hindustan Unilever. Tallow is a rendered form of beef or mutton fat and is primarily made up of triglycerides. A mixture of tallow and other fats was saponified by an alkali. It was extruded into opaque oval bars. The concave shape of the soap is formed by shrinkage while the soap is drying. From the late 19th century, Pears soap became famous, master-minded by Thomas J. Barratt (1841--1914).

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