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Monday, March 06, 2023

A Brief History of Soap

While humans have known about soap since antiquity, its use has ebbed and flowed with the times. From ancient Babylon to modern bathrooms, History Guy recalls the forgotten story of soap.
VIDEO HERE  (12:53 minutes)

Here's a cool video that WiscoDave sent in on the making of homemade soap:

16 comments:

  1. Both of my grandmothers made their own from saved grease that they filtered through several layers of cheese cloth and a few other things one of which was lye. The finished product always floated and made a nice lather.

    Nemo

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  2. My mom was an elementary school teacher and she decided to make soap at home once as part of a project for her class. Whew! The smell was overpowering and it took a few days to clear the house of it.

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    1. There's a reason they do it outside, ya know.

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    2. One other little known fact: Lubricating grease, the kind you squirt into your ball joints, is actually a form of soap, too

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    3. I was just fucking with you. I've never made it nor seen it made. I probably haven't even seen a real bar of homemade soap.

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    4. She actually was making it in the garage if I recall correctly (wee tyke) but man, that stuff was pungent-funky. She was actually doing it with wood ashes and lye.

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    5. Wood ash and lye was what we used in NC. Pumice for tough spots. My mother helped make the soap the neighbor's two miles doen the road.

      Kenny, I reckon meeting more of your neighbors you'll find some with homemade soap.

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  3. History of Soap? I thought it was going to be "These are the Tates; These are the Campbells, and this is no longer Soap because by 2023 standards, the Tates and the Campbells are mainstream"

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  4. Thanks, Ken! I've been saving hardwood ash from the fireplace this winter, and I'm going to try and do this when it warms up outside. Gonna show the grandchildren "where it came from".

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    Replies
    1. Unless you add lime, the lye from a wood ash (potassium hydroxide) makes a soft soap. I've done it, but these days (yes, I still make my own) I just shortcut and use store bought lye: sodium hydroxide.

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  5. You always pick interesting topics to publish. Very good.

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  6. I have an even briefer history with lye soap. Terrible stuff.

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  7. A few years ago I got into soap making using a few more modern tool than in the video. It was less work and I used all kinds of fats and oils. Made so much that I have a lifetime supply of quality soap.

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  8. Soap is made from fat plus stuff. Fat is food, basic calories plus the oils we need to live. If we are so poor that we need to eat all of the fat we produce, we cannot make soap.

    That is what Biden and the Dems want - for us to be so poor that we need to eat every scrap of nutrient in our environment. So we haven't the strength to fight them. Making us dirty and prone to infection and disease is a nice by-product for them.

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