Soap Making
No one knows how or where soap making had originated. There are recipes that date back 5000 years with variations appearing in Mesopotamia, Egypt, ancient Greece and Rome. Modern commercially prodoced soaps are really detergents in bar form. Once you have experienced handmade soap from natural plant sources, you never desire to go to the store to buy another bar.
Introduction
For a number of years, my daughter and I would sneak off to a nearby bath shop that sold handmade soaps and bath salts. The quality of soap was so much better than the detergent based name-brand soaps from the grocery store.
After retiring, taking my periodic trip to the bath shop, my wife was not pleased that if I wanted to buy “that expensive soap” I would have to learn to make it. Little did she know I was more than happy to research and add yet another hobby to my arsenal!
In my teens, I was befriended by an older lady who lived a few doors down from my grandmother. I enjoyed hearing her stories when she was young and raising her own family. One of the stories she shared was over how they made their own soap in a wash tub over a fire in their backyard using lye and their collected cooking grease. Even then that intriqued me how taking a really caustic chemical combined with old grease could make such a useful product.
When I went to research how soap was being made today, I was taken back that animal fat was no longer used, but a whole list of a variety vegetable oils were being used. Though my first batch was not the greatest, I have since learned the technique and have made some really nice soaps. This section contains articles and some recipes I’ve used to make soap.
Last modified February 25, 2021: version 2.0 (70b449f)