Toilet Soaps

In the manufacture of fancy soaps the same crude materials are employed as for the common soaps, but they are in a more refined state, and the superior fats, as hog fat, cocoanut oil, and olive oil, are substituted for the inferior. The soaps obtained are generally coloured and scented.

Colouring Soaps

For the colouring of ordinary fancy soaps, mineral colours are employed; for superior toilet and transparent soaps, organic pigments are used. Generally, the red colouring matter is derived from vermilion or chrome red, the violet from fuchsine solved in glycerine, the red-brown and brown from caramel and the various kinds of umber. For green, chrome green is used; a beautiful vegetable green is obtained by stirring in the soap, saponified with 7 to 10 percent, of palm oil, some smalts or ultramarine. For blue, smalts or ultramarine. Yellow is obtained by mixing palm butter with the fat to be saponified. For black, common lampblack is used. Fine toilet soaps and transparent soaps may be coloured as follows. For a red colour, tincture of dragon's-blood or liquid carmine. Rose, tiucture of carthamine or of archil. Yellow and orange, tincture of annatto or saffron. Blue and violet, tincture of litmus, or of alkanet-root, or soluble Prussian blue, basic, or a very little pure indigo in impalpable powder.

Green, a mixture of blue and yellow.

Soap Balis

These are usually made of one or other of the toilet soaps with the addition of a little starch; sometimes sand is used in place of the starch.

Camphor Savonette

Spermaceti, 2 oz; camphor, powdered with the addition of a little spirits, 1 oz.; white curd soap, melted with a little water, 24 oz.; amalgamate with a gentle heat and mould into balls.

Hard-Water Soaps

In order to reduce the waste of soaps in contact with hard waters, through double decomposition brought about by the lime and magnesia salts, Funk and Eltze, in 1877, patented the use of sodium phosphate; and in 1890 Grimshaw claimed novelty in the addition of "an alkaline phosphate," with the object of forming calcium and magnesium phosphates, instead of lime and magnesia soaps, which are insoluble in water and therefore wasted.

Sand Soap

Under this heading occur a number of soaps in which it is sought to unite the chemical action of soap with the mechanical aid afforded by sand in scouring. According to C. Roth (Se-fansieder Zeitunj, Nov. 21, 1884), as much as 70 per cent. of clean sand or powdered quartz is sometimes mixed with soap paste, and experiments showed that such soap had no disagreeable effect on the hands when used as a detergent. In a similar way, soap is made the vehicle of many substances to. be applied to the skin, medicinally or otherwise, or in any cleansing process. All these should be incorporated with "neat" soaps, freshly made or remelted, at as low a temperature as possible. Some form of soap is not unfrequently the basis of polishing pastes.

It is obvious that many abrasive substances besides sand can be incorporated in soap, such as fuller's earth, pumice, brickdust, emery, etc, in all proportions up to the limit of cohesion of the mass. Even some toilet soaps are so prepared for application to the teeth, substituting precipitated chalk, cuttlefish bone, etc, for the commoner forms of abrasive material.

Sand Ball

Fine old yellow soap, 2 parts; silver sand, 1 part; scent to taste; melt the soap and mix in the sand, afterwards adding the scent and making into balls.

Cold-Water Soaps

This term, which has made its appearance within the last few years, was at first confined to soaps made from very soft fatty materials, but containing a very small amount of water; such, for instance, as those produced by Morfit's process. Similar products are also very largely made by artificially depriving •* neat soap," fitted in the ordinary way, of about 1/3 of the 30-32 per cent. of water which it naturally contains. This is done by exposing it to prolonged fire-heat in a vessel in which it can be thoroughly agitated ' at the same time; occasionally it is also stiffened by the addition of sodium car-, bonate or silicate, as described above. These soaps are sold at a low rate, and, from their great dryness, may be kept indefinitely without losing weight, a property possessed by scarcely any other household soap; being perfectly pure soap, they are truly economical, provided they are not used with hot water.. Latterly, however, the use of the term has been appropriated by makers of heavily - watered soaps, which run away in hot water.

Hence, in this case also, the consumer should be careful what kind of soap he buys under this name.