What was lye soap used for

Electricity is then run through the rods. Attracted by the charge, crystals of lye attach themselves to the rods. After that, the liquid is poured off and allowed to evaporate until nothing but lye crystals remain.

Then, this lye can be used for a variety of purposes, including making soap batter. What is lye soap? The short answer is that all soap is lye soap. True soap bars cannot exist without lye. Bar soap is made through a chemical process known as saponification sapo is Latin for soap :. A lye solution is combined with oil or fat to cause a chemical reaction.

This reaction breaks down the fats or oils into fatty acid chains and the lye mixture is neutralized in the process. Lye can react with oils and fats in a heated environment or a cold environment. Through a hot process method, soaps can go from liquid form to a solid bar form in minutes.

When an outside source of heat is applied to a lye and oil solution, the water molecules in the oil evaporate and the saponification process is sped up. Although hot processing lye is much quicker, we chose to cold-process our bar soaps. Heat can change the chemical characteristics of essential oils and we want to deliver their best, most potent effects in our natural soap.

One of our favorite natural bar soaps is Fighting Five , which is packed with immune-boosting properties to help eliminate germs without drying out your skin. Without lye in soap making, there would only be puddles of fat and oil. In fact, if a soap bar is not made primarily of cleansing alkalized oils, the FDA does not consider it a soap at all! What is soap without lye? Syndets synthetic detergents , which are the most common forms of cleansers on the market, are surfactants bound together in a bar to cleanse and lather.

While some claim to be lye free soap, lye is often hiding under the name of another ingredient. Many soaps claiming they are made without lye actually did use it at some point in the manufacturing process. Common ingredients that were made using lye include the following:. Sodium tallowate — produced by a reaction between lye and animal fat. Shaved or flaked, lye soap makes a good laundry detergent.

For bathing and hand washing, lye soap is as effective as any commercial bar soap. Sanitizing properties are equal to those of manufactured cleansers. Batches are variable, and not everyone will find lye soap a comfortable product for personal hygiene. Medicinal claims that lye soap will cure psoriasis, dandruff, head lice and a host of other common skin problems and infestations may be partly true. Old recipes retained some caustic lye in the final product, which acted as a rough antiseptic.

The small amounts of glycerin helped to soothe the resulting skin irritation. In addition to its benefits for skin, lye soap is an all-natural, biodegradable product, which makes it popular with those who want to use environmentally friendly cleaning products.

It's also generally pretty cheap to make, since the ingredients involved aren't expensive. Despite this, it can be very harsh if too much lye is added, and tends to harden over time. Also, making it requires a lot of caution, since lye is so caustic. Modern lye soap is made with an automated process, with many manufacturers purchasing large quantities of the ingredients and mixing them in industrial machines.

Some manufacturers still use the original methods to make smaller batches though, and people also make their own soap at home. Historically, this soap was made in much the same way as it is today, but all of the ingredients were usually made from scratch, not just the finished product.

Also, I grow lavender and all of my goats recently had babies so I have no shortage of milk around here. Might as well put it all to good use, right? So here is the recipe for this wonderfully enticing soap. This article contains incorrect information.

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