Home-Made Soap

Save every bit of fat until, when melted, it fills a five-pound pail. Heat to a liquid in the oven. Place a large earthen bowl in the sink and put in it one can of potash, one quart and a half of cold water, one tablespoonful of ammonia, one small tablespoonful of borax. Stir this with a long stick (or it may burn) till dissolved, then pour the warm fat slowly in, stirring occasionally till thick. Pour this when well mixed into a long pasteboard box, and place in the air and sun till hard and white. The rule which always comes on a can of potash is a good one, but it gains by adding one cup of ammonia and one half a cup of borax.

German Washing-Fluid

Dissolve two pounds of shaved soap in three gallons of water, add one tablespoonful of turpentine, and three tablespoonfuls of liquid ammonia. Soak the clothes in this three hours and wash without boiling. Turpentine loosens the dirt and does not injure any fabric.

Soap solution, which is most useful in bleaching, is made by shaving a cake of soap into a pan, and pouring over it boiling water, stirring until the soap is thoroughly dissolved, using about one quarter of a cake to a boiler-ful of clothes.

Javelle Water

This can be bought at any druggist's or department store, but is easily made at home. Dissolve half a pound of chloride of lime in two quarts of water, pour off the top, which will be clear, and add to this one quart of liquid soda. This should be kept in the dark, corked tightly, and must be used only on white goods.

Liquid Soda

Boil one quart of water and one pound of sal-soda (washing-soda). Cool and put in a labeled bottle. This can be used from time to time to whiten clothes, a table-spoonful to a tub of clothes. It will clean and whiten kitchen towels, and also sweeten the sink.

How to make one gallon of bluing for fifteen cents. Buy ten cents' worth of soluble blue in any drug store, put in a cup, adding a little water, and stir till free from lumps. Then dissolve one teaspoonful of oxalic acid (five cents' worth will be enough) in a little hot water; when this is dissolved, put in a large pan and pour over it four quarts of cold water, adding the soluble blue. The oxalic acid will keep the bluing from spotting the clothes.

Home-Made Bluing

Dissolve one ounce of Prussian blue in five quarts of cold water, also one half an ounce of oxalic acid in a pint of water. When the acid is thoroughly dissolved, mix it with the Prussian blue. Strain through a piece of muslin into a bottle. This makes an excellent bluing, and costs about one tenth of that which you buy already made. It also renders the clothes very white.

Bluing Easily Made

Moisten one package of good bluing dye for cotton; pour on it one quart of boiling water; strain and it is ready for use.

Great care should be used in selecting bluing. Test it first, and if little clusters of tiny ironrust spots appear, discard it at once.

Never let clothes stand in bluing water; it will make them streaked.

Keep the bluing for use in a flannel bag, as the meshes will hold the undissolved particles.

Blue the water always until a handful shows the color.