Modern Methods for Making Lye Soap - A Guide for Making your own Soap www.scribd.com/doc/239851214

1. Both the processed lye and the lard rendering re-
quired plenty of prior planning, and a lot of time and
work.
Soap making was a major task, necessary because
water does not clean well on its own, and soap was
needed to clean both people and clothing. Our hard-
working forebears did that which was necessary to
provide cleanliness for their families!
Today, we don’t have to butcher an animal, skin it,
render its fat into lard, or make our own lye. The
process of making soap is much easier,—it requires
only three ingredients: fat, lye, and water—although
soap making is not without an element of danger.
First, assemble your tools. Recipe, gloves,
wooden spoon, thermometer, scale for weighing your
ingredients, stainless steel pan for heating lard or
S
oap making has changed a great deal since the
early days. Ozarks women of bygone days had
to render their own lard, cooking animal fats
slowly in a big vat until they liquefied, being careful
not to let them burn. Then, they had to collect their
wood ashes from the stove or fireplace in a hopper.
Later, they would pour water over the ashes to leach
out the lye that is necessary for any type of cold
process soap making, which is the name of the
process used to make lye soap. The lye then had to be
filtered through several layers of straw or hay.
The OZARKS MOUNTAINEER • MARCH/APRIL 2011 55
Modern Methods For
Making Lye Soap
By Diana Ross
It’s Easy, Once You
Get Your Materials!
You can use olive oil or coconut oil and fragrances in making soap, but I think you just can’t beat natural!
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2. 56 The OZARKS MOUNTAINEER • MARCH/APRIL 2011
Some basic materials: lye, and vinegar (in case you spill some lye on
your skin), a measuring cup, and a thermometer.
Lard (or vegetable oil), a kitchen scale, and glass or stainless steel pans
for the soap mixture to cure are other materials you will need.
Melt the lard over low heat until it is a liquid.
Add the lye water mixture to the melted lard, and stir until
it has thickened and becomes creamy.
Photos by Gary Henretty
…it requires only three ingredients: fat, lye, and water—although soap
‚
„

3. The OZARKS MOUNTAINEER • MARCH/APRIL 2011 57
Pour the lye into the cold water slowly and carefully.
The lye mixture, with the lard, has been mixed thoroughly,
saponification has occurred, and it now must sit and harden.
Your bars of soap, cut to the size you want. No
coloring or scent was added to this batch.
making is not without an element of danger.
ƒ
…

4. 58 The OZARKS MOUNTAINEER • MARCH/APRIL 2011
and Pyrex® baking dishes lined
with wax paper or sprayed with
Pam® to pour your soap into. (I
don’t use the wax paper, person-
ally. I just spray the glass bak-
ing dishes with Pam®.) Use
glass, plastic, granite, or stain-
less steel when making soap.
Do not use anything aluminum.
You will need a towel to cover
the soap mixture as it cools and
starts to set up. Set-up time will
take approximately three hours.
The soap must then “cure” for
at least three weeks before use.
Keep some vinegar nearby in
case you accidentally splatter
any lye solution on yourself.
Vinegar will neutralize it. DO
NOT use water, it makes the
burning worse.
Lye is a caustic substance,
and handling it must be done
with great care. It is necessary for any type of home
soap making, however, and if care is used, it is really
not difficult to work with. When slowly added to cold
water, lye heats up quickly and will reach temps of
around 210 degrees. The lye mixture must cool to 85
degrees before you mix it with the oils.
Remember, the lye must always be added to the
cold water, not the other way around.
After slowly and carefully mixing the lye with the
water using a wooden spoon, set the lye mixture in a
safe place, covered, away from children or pets, until
it drops to 85 degrees.
Some lye hints... Do NOT buy the substance in
stores which is liquid. It is NOT sodium hydroxide.
Sodium hydroxide (lye) has gotten hard to find be-
cause it is a common substance used in making
meth. I bought my lye from Lehman Brothers cata-
log, a favorite of the Amish, but I had to pay a haz-
ardous substance shipping fee. Lehman Brothers is
based in Kidron, Ohio: (www.Lehmans.com) or
888-438-5346.
Nobody knocked on the door from the FDA, ei-
ther, demanding to know what I needed all that lye
for!
I have read that there is some debate about the
water used, that it is better to use soft water rather
than hard water. I used tap water, from my well. I
don’t see why anyone would need to use soft water.
Mine is hard, and it worked great.
A good, simple recipe for lye soap is simply one
12 oz. can of 100 percent lye (sodium hydroxide), 21-
1/2 ounces of very cold or partially frozen water, and
5 lbs., 7-1/3 ounces of lard or vegetable shortening.
Measure each ingredient carefully. Heat your fat
mixture, which can be lard, bought at your favorite
other oil to 80 degrees, safety glasses, eight-cup
measuring cup, your carefully measured lye mixture,
A pioneer ash hopper to leach out lye to make soap.

5. worked in the past.
I waited about a week, contemplated all she had
told me, and got up one morning and made my own!
It is just that simple! =
—Diana Ross, writer, editor, beekeeper, and home-
maker, lives on a farm at Anderson, Mo.
Online Help:
Making your own lye: www.wikihow.com/
Make-Lye
grocery store. You can also render your own fat from
beef, chicken fat, or pork, cooked at very slow tem-
peratures, so it won’t burn. Tallow can also be ac-
quired either cheaply or sometimes, free, at the
butcher shop and you can render it. Beef tallow, in
particular, makes a nice white soap, but I used pork
lard and my first batch had very good results. It
should be allowed to cool to 80 degrees. The lye is
mixed slowly into it. Pour it in a slow dribble, about
the size of a pencil. Safety glasses to prevent splash-
ing into your eyes is a good idea.
Stir the mix over low heat until saponification
(tracing) occurs. This change produces creaminess
and a thickening, not unlike making candy at the soft
ball stage. Be sure to stir constantly, or separation of
lye and fat can occur, and your soap will not set up.
The final step is to pour your soap into the glass,
stainless steel, or granite pans you have lined with
wax paper or sprayed with Pam®. Some thrift-minded
people use old wooden drawers for the purpose. I
would, if I had one that was the right size.
Do not use anything aluminum in the process. I
use stainless steel and glass pans, and I cover the
soap with a kitchen towel until it has set up. The
process of setting takes about three weeks. You will
not be able to resist checking your soap for firmness
every time you walk by! It is almost magical to see it
become soap, because you made it, all by yourself!
Later on, as you become more proficient
at soap making, other ingredients may be
added, such as a fragrance and an emulsifier,
like coconut oil, to give your soap more of a
lather. Some people add olive oil, pine oil,
and similar things.
I prefer to keep mine pure, however. The
fewer the ingredients, the less possibility of
an allergic reaction.
It is ironic that most people think lye soap
is harsh. This is not the case at all. In reality,
it is very mild, and it is a much better prod-
uct than the soaps you buy on the open
market. When I first started using lye soap,
I was amazed that all my skin problems,
rashes and blemishes, healed up—almost
instantly! Old timers even say it will cure
poison ivy.
On my first batch of soap, I spent three
dollars for my fat, seven dollars for my lye,
and made thirty medium sized bars of soap.
Economically, it just cannot be beat.
If you are still unsure how to proceed,
watch a demonstration, locally, or on
YouTube. I went to George Washington
Carver Monument’s Pioneer Days demon-
stration, at Diamond, Mo., and I watched a
very nice lady make soap. She took time to
answer every question I could think of, and
she demonstrated how the old lye filters had
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