The Ozarks Chronicle/The Ozarks Home & Garden

Why do some people go to the trouble of making soap, when they could simply go to the market and buy what they need? There are several reasons. The joy that comes from creating something useful is one of them, whether the creation is a woven basket, quilt, or a bar of soap. Another is that commercially available soap has chemicals added to make it prettier and smell good.

Some children and some adults have skin that is sensitive to these chemicals. In such cases, chemically free bars of soap are available for prices that range from $10 to $20 a bar. Unless you have a surplus of money, the option of making your own additive-free soap, for 4 cents a bar, can be an appealing alternative. The process today is simple, fast, and you can make several pounds of additive free soap in your own kitchen in a couple of hours.

The manufacturing process does not require a doctorate in chemistry, but it does require caution since you are working with something that can cause a severe burn should it get on your skin. Lye is highly caustic. Safety glasses will protect the eyes, and a simple bottle of vinegar will quickly neutralize any lye that is splashed on the skin. All you need is lard, lye, a wooden stirring instrument and the recipe for making two pounds of soap. Rubber gloves are recommended to protect the hands. You cannot be too safe when working with materials that are hazardous.

To begin, put the two pounds of lard in a large mixing bowl and place it in the oven with the lowest heat setting. It has to be completely melted so that the lye compound, added later, will mix well. While the lard is melting, use a quart-size glass container and carefully measure out nine level tablespoons full of lye. Place in the container and slowly add 12 to 14 ounces of water. Avoid breathing the fumes and stir with a wooden paddle until the lye is dissolved.

Remove the melted lard from the oven and let it cool until it starts to slightly thicken. While waiting for this, get a large cake pan and place it where it will not have to be moved for about two days.

Once the lard has started to cool – just as the solidification process is starting, about 98 degrees – slowly pour in the now cooled lye solution while stirring the mixture. Stir continually for about 7 – 10 minutes. Then stir every few minutes until the mixture thickens to a heavy consistency. Now take a plastic trash bag over the large cake pan and push it into the pan so that the bottom and the sides of the pan are completely covered, and pour in the thickening mixture of lard and lye.

In about two days, the mixture will have solidified to where you can turn the pan upside down on a plastic trash bag. Remove the plastic that covered the pan the mixture was poured into. Using a thin piece of plastic or a piece of twine string held in both hands, cut the soap into bars. Wait about two more days and stack the bars so that they are separated. Let them dry for about a month, at which time they can be used.

The whole procedure for making soap is simple, and people who use it seldom go back to regular soap because of what it does for the complexion and the hair (it makes an excellent shampoo, and gives that shiny look so desired by women).

In the past, making soap was not so easy. You first had to kill a hog and render out the fat. Until lye was invented, one had to make his own. To do this, wood ashes were placed in a large container with small holes in the bottom. Water was added to the ashes. With a pan underneath to catch the caustic water dripping from the ashes, the pan –usually a clay container – stored up the home made lye for adding to the hog lard. And hours of stirring assured the mixture would produce a high-quality soap.

Some farmers, especially those who butcher their own hogs, still use this method. But for the rest of us, going to the market and buying lard and lye for the process is highly recommended. It is much easier than chasing down an uncooperative hog and going through the process that our forefathers had to go through. As one 93-year-old retired farmer, who has used this method years before told me, “It takes all day to make soap.”

Today’s method is much easier, and it does not take all day.

James Bell, who lives outside Steelville, is a retired licensed stationary engineer and has freelance credits is numerous religious, general interest, and sporting mags. While in the work world, he did features and profiles (freelance)for the Journal Newspapers in St. Louis and a ghosted educational column for the Springfield News Leader.