Toilet Soaps. To this class belong the finer kinds of scented soaps, which have emollient properties. They are rarely made direct by the perfumer, the body or basis being a well-selected white soap, subsequently cleaned and purified. For the choicest grades, the body should be made of a mixture of olive and sweet-almond oil, as the fat stock. Lard and beef tallow make the next best stock; and for palm soap a small quantity of bleached palm oil is to be added to them. Cocoa oil and pale yellow resin saponaceous matters also enter into the composition of certain toilet soaps. These body soaps may be obtained as wanted from any well-conducted soap factory. To be adapted to the purposes of perfumery they must be perfectly neutral, firm, free from unpleasant odor and all tendency to crust in cold, or sweat in damp weather. They should, moreover, give a rich lather without wasting too rapidly in the water. Soaps, generally, in their original condition, are usually deficient in many of those points; and must, for the purposes of perfumery, undergo a refining process, which is as follows:

554. To Refine Soap for Making Toilet Soap

554.    To Refine Soap for Making Toilet Soap. The soap, as purchased in bars or blocks, being piled upon the shelf of the rasping machine, is next placed in the hopper, and as the wheel revolves, knives come against the soap and cut it into meal, which falls into the reception box beneath. It is now in a state fit to be melted readily, for which purpose it is transferred to a steam bath, and mixed with rose and orange-flower waters, each half a gallon, to every hundred pounds of soap. The steam being let on, and the containing kettle covered, its contents become gradually fluid, and in this state must be stirred with a crutch - which is a long stick having the form of an inverted T - until the paste becomes uniformly consistent and smooth throughout. It is then allowed to cool, again melted, but without fragrant water, and crutched as before. When the contents of the vessel comprise several kinds of soap, great care must be observed not to put in all at once, but to add and melt each successively, and to crutch constantly, so as to effect an intimate mixture. When the paste begins to cool, coloring matter as may be desired is then added, and subsequently the perfume, which is reserved to the last, to avoid any unnecessary loss by evaporation from the hot paste.

555. To Perfume, Cut and Stamp Toilet Soap

555.    To Perfume, Cut and Stamp Toilet Soap. When extracts or bouquets are used, they must be added to the compound in meal, and incorporated with the mass by kneading it with the hands; for the application of heat would impair the delicacy of the odor, as well as occasion loss by its evaporation. In large establishments this is done by passing the meal repeatedly between marble rollers.

The soap is now ready to be put into the cooling frames, which is a rectangular well, made of a series of wooden frames, resting successively one upon the other. In a day or two it is sufficiently hard to be cut into tablets of the size of the sections of each frame; they are set up edgewise, and left for several days to dry, and are then barred by means of a wire. The sections or lifts of the frames regulate the width of the bars, and the gauges adjust their breadth - these latter being made so as to cut bars or squares of four, six, eight or any required number to the pound of soap. The bars are further subdivided into tablets, and subjected to pressure for the purpose of imparting solidity, and ornamenting the exterior with some appropriate device, or impressing upon it the maker's name; the shape of the tablet being determined by the form of the mould or die-box in which it is pressed. The press is of ordinary construction, with spiral springs to throw out the soap tablet from the die-box as soon as it is pressed. In some factories the pressure is more effectually accomplished by means of a steam hammer, which is made to give three blows, directly vertical, to each tablet of soap. Savonettes or soap-balls are shaped by rotating blocks of soap upon a soap scoop made of brass, with sharp edges.