612. To Make Soft Soap

612.    To Make Soft Soap. Break up 8 pounds potash into small lumps, and put it into an iron pot with about 3 gallons boiling water; melt in another iron pot 8 pounds clarified fat; put 3 or 4 gallons hot water into a clean barrel, and add to it a ladleful each of the lye and the fat; stir thoroughly, and add the lye and the fat, a single ladleful of each at a time, until the whole is thoroughly mixed; then stir in a ladleful of hot water at a time until the barrel is full, and stir till the mixture becomes a creamy mass; put it away for 3 months in a moderately cool place and it will be ready for use.

613. To Make Turpentine Soap

613.      To Make Turpentine Soap. Cut up 3 pounds brown soap and melt it in 7 quarts water, then put it in a stone pot and add 9 table-spoonfuls spirits of turpentine and 6 of alcohol.

614. To Use Turpentine Soap

614.    To Use Turpentine Soap. Make very hot suds with some of the soap (see last receipt), and let the clothes remain in it half an hour. Then wash them out and rinse as other clothes are done. It is particularly nice for blankets and quilts, as it removes the dirt and requires very little rubbing.

615. To Make Soft Soap Hard

615.     To Make Soft Soap Hard. Put into a kettle 4 pailfuls of soft soap, and stir in it, by degrees, about 1 quart of common salt. Boil until all the water is separated from the curd, remove the fire from the kettle, and draw off the water with a syphon (a yard or so of india rubber hose will answer). Then pour the soap into a wooden form in which muslin has been placed. (See No. 549 (To Make Domestic Soap).) For this purpose, a wooden box, sufficiently large and tight, may be employed. "When the soap is firm, turn it out to dry, cut into bars with a brass wire and let it harden. A little powdered resin will assist the soap to harden, and give it a yellow color. If the soft soap is very thin, more salt must be used.

616. Labor-saving Soap

616.      Labor-saving Soap. Take 2 pounds sal soda, 2 pounds yellow bar soap, and 10 quarts water. Cut the soap in thin slices, and boil together 2 hours; strain, and it will be fit for use. Put the clothes in soak the night before you wash, and to every pail of water in which you boil them, add a pound of soap. They will need no rubbing; merely rinse them out, and they will be perfectly clean and white.

617. To Estimate the Quality of Soap

617.      To Estimate the Quality of Soap. The quality of soap may be properly estimated from the amount of fatty acids which any given specimen contains. The following simple analysis may be performed by any one, and may be relied upon as giving good results. The soap to be examined should be dissolved in water. If distilled water cannot be readily obtained, rain water will answer well enough. When a perfect solution is obtained, add hydrochloric acid. After a little while the fatty acids will be found to be separated from the other constituents of the soap. These should be collected, and their relative weight for any given quantity estimated. The relative weight thus found will be a sufficiently just indication of the quality.