Important: Safety Warning
This page directs the use of hazardous substances — such as benzine, gasoline, lye, or strong acids — for household tasks. These materials are highly flammable, corrosive, or poisonous, and the practices described have caused fires, burns, and poisonings.
This information has been left in for historical purposes but should not be acted upon.
Home › Soft Soaps › To Make Soft Soap (Break up into an iron pot)
To Make Soft Soap (Break up into an iron pot)
Break up 8 into an iron pot with about 3 gallons boiling water, in the morning pour it hot over the water; melt in another iron pot 8 pounds grease, which must have been previously clarified fat; put 3 or 4 gallons hot water into rendered down and put in the barrel, put a clean barrel, and add to it a ladleful each of more water on the potash that remains undisthe lye and the fat; stir thoroughly, and add solved; when hot, add as before, and so on the lye and the fat, a single ladleful of cach until all the potash is dissolved; fill up the at a time, until the whole is thoroughly barrel more slowly with cold water, finishing mixed ; then stir in a ladleful of hot water at a time until the barrel is full, and stir till the mixture becomes a creamy mass; put it away for 3 months in a moderately cool place and it will be ready for use. and give the skin a tendency to roughen or chap, especially when exposed to the wind.