Home Forums Miscellaneous Topics Rural Living Making soap?

Like Granny Moses on the Beverlybillies? Or, even see any?

My Mom and my Aunt Blanche used to make soap after my Dad and Uncle butchered a hog.

My Aunt made Lye Soap when I was a kid.

She had all her Brothers and Sisters save up all their old Grease to make it.

Used to help my granny make lye soap for years.
Best stuff to get chiggers off of your body.
Can't buy Red Devil lye at the grocery store
anymore because the dope heads use it as an
ingredient in whatever concoction they make
with it
I used to have a cake of it left somewhere.
That's all my family had growing up during the
Depression. It's good for laundry and everything else

Mother use to make it quite often.

I don't make soap, but we do make our own cloths washing detergent for less than a dollar a gallon. My wife has been using it happily for years.

Get the Zote bar detergent at Walmart and a box of Mule Team Borax. One bar makes 10 gallons. You will need 2, 5-gallon buckets with lid.

Grind the Zote on an old cheese grater. Heat a gallon or so water to boiling and add 2 cups of Borax and the ground Zote to be dissolved in the water. I usually dissolve the Borax first and then the Zote. It seems to mix better this way. When dissolved mix evenly with your 2 buckets , 9 more gallons of water.

Don't try to make it stronger. I used one bar in 5 gallons once and had to cut it out in chunks. That one bar for $1.25 will make 10 gallons about as thick as regular detergent.

my sister used to do this sort of modern age I'll claim like 1990 to 2000 or later ,, soap is really cheap just to buy

Made it twice a year in chemistry lab, once for each class. Hydrolysis of esters and formation of a salt. Used NaOH (lye), any vegetable oil, little alcohol to let the oil and lye mix, and heat/stir for 20 minutes or so. Alcohol boils off and soap forms. It was good soap, but purification to remove the excess lye was the tricky part.

My grandmother made lye soap back in the 1950s.

When I was a kid we made Lye Soap with Bear grease, Ash's, Lye, my Grandmother liked Bear grease better than Pig grease, she said it made better soap. Rio7

You can tan hides—render your own lard and make your own soap. Everyone should do each at least once. It’s not magic but it is hard work. You will then appreciate how cheaply we can buy these things.

My wife makes lye soap from the fat that I trim off of briskets or other fatty pieces of meat. It has to set for 30 days but I use it and I like it. It’s apparently quite the process because she sets aside a day to make it.

I recently found a store that sells ready made soap!
WOOT!!!