Homemade Soap
With this recipe you transform a 20.00 investment into a 100.00 savings freeing up an additional 80.00 for your monthly budget.
5-6 lbs of grease or lard
1 can of lye
1 qt. of water
½ box of borax or ½ cup of coal oil
½ cup of household ammonia
1 oz. Of fragrance (citronella, crush dried rosed pedals, etc.)
Put the grease in a pan and heat to lukewarm or a good running stage. Put lye and borax in crock, add water and stir with a wooden spoon until all dissolved. Let stand until lukewarm. When both are lukewarm put grease in a can and have a stirrer ready, long handled wooden spoon. Slowly pour the Lye mixture while constantly stirring. add Ammonia just after adding Lye. When its thick and creamy its is ready to pour into molds. Add the fragrance along a the last.
Molds can also be fun, they can range from coffee tins to muffin tins or you can do what we do with the kids... ladle your soap into a 10x14 baking pan about an inch and a half deep and smooth it at best as you can and use shaped cookie cutters to make fun designs of soap. with the trimmings allow to dry for a couple of days and using the fine side of an old cheese grader make laundry soap.
Experiment with your fragrances and you will soon have a six month supply of soap for every occasion.
I'm going to have to try some of this if I can find some lye. My Grandmother used to make all her own soap.She put down waxed paper in a enameled baking pan and poured it in. When it had cooled off pretty good but it could still be scored easily she scored it with a wooden spatula in something like 2"x 4" bars.After it had cooled comepletely she turned the pan upside down and finished breaking them to seperate them and wrapped individually in wax paper to store them.
Good stuff !!
Just look at the store for some old fashioned draino. 'Pure' lye. Corrosive nasty stuff aka sodium hydroxide. Old timers used to leach it from hardwood ashes.
I can remember my grandmother making lye soap after a hog killing. I don't know what all she did to make the soap but I can remember her scooping up some ashes and putting in the pot.
I would recommend making your own lye from the post about it, I say this becuase i believe the over the counter stuff contains other chemicals besides lye and I'm not sure how good they would be as a soap, considering the leaching of lye appears to be a very simple process, with the exception of a little constructive enginuity I am sure this will prove a rewarding project to aid in your soap making exploration
THE OLD BRAND RED DEVIL LYE WAS/IS PURE BUT THEY'VE TAKEN IT OFF THE SHELVES HERE CAUSE THE METH HEADS USE IT TO MAKE THEIR POISON DOPE. YOU MAY CAN STILL GET IT AT FARM STORES IF YOU ASK FOR IT.
Quote from: BRIAR on July 13, 2010
THE OLD BRAND RED DEVIL LYE WAS/IS PURE BUT THEY'VE TAKEN IT OFF THE SHELVES HERE CAUSE THE METH HEADS USE IT TO MAKE THEIR POISON DOPE. YOU MAY CAN STILL GET IT AT FARM STORES IF YOU ASK FOR IT.
I saw it on the shelf at walmart the other day.
Side note
When making soap only use wooden or glass instument/containers. And then never use those things for anything else.
The lye will react withthte metal.
A quart milk carton with one side cut off makes a good soap mold.
Interesting...does the recipe say what the ammonia, borax and coal oil are for? My wife has made soap for years with just fat and lye. Beef fat makes a good, hard soap, and the natural lanolin sure is good for the skin.
twobirds