Making Face Soap One Bar At A Time
All homemade soaps are made with lye. Lye is the necessary
catalyst. Even so, many homemade types make good hand and bath soaps
. It is the addition of ammonia, kerosene, and other ingredients that makes
soap harsh to the skin. The lye usually neutralizes those items anyway.
I have used various soap recipes before.
There is an increasing interest in making soap as with bread baking
and other creative home arts.
Here is a recipe a reader sent me a while ago.
She liked to keep a bar at the kitchen sink for washing her hands,
and despite the fact that it didn't suds or lather
the way many commercial soaps do, it did a good cleaning job
even as a bath soap.
This reader didn't want to wait until she had accumulated a lot of
grease (rancid fats don't make good soap anyway) so she weighed,
measured and experimented until she got a satisfactory recipe
for just one bar. If this soap doesn't suit you not much has been wasted.
For soap-making, always use a wooden spoon and a graniteware or
iron kettle, nothing metal.
Measure 1/2 cup clean lukewarm fat into a clean plastic container.
A well washed cottage cheese carton will do.
In another carton, measure 1/4 cup cold water.
Add 1 Tablespoon lye to the water, stirring with wooden spoon to
dissolve. Then, with the same spoon, stir fat slowly as you add
the lye solution.
Stir to the consistency of butterscotch pudding.
At this time you may add 1 Tablespoon lanolin, rose water, cologne
or lemon juice. Lanolin is gentle to the skin.
Pour into a plastic tumbler or any other flexible plastic with an
interesting shape. Cover the top with plastic wrap. Put it away
where it will not be disturbed for 24 hours. By then the soap
will have hardened.
Remove plastic wrap and loosen soap by running a knife around it.
Let "ripen" in dry place for two weeks before using.
One of my sources states that any soap will float if you fold air
into it much as you fold beaten egg whites into a cake. I haven't
tried that but I will next time.
Monday, November 12, 1973
THE KANSAS CITY STAR
