This woman, about 107 years old, probably made her own soap from the pig tallow that came from Oscar Mayer's butcher shop, located on the north side of Chicago. It was brown too, just like Be Kind's Shower Gel Soap. However, hers didn't have essential oils or a fragrance like Kudzu Blossom, nor was there sweet almond oil. And she certainly wouldn't have frittered away local honey in her lye soap. Gosh, she looks tired...and wishes her father-in-law had taken Oscar's advice about expanding their family bakery.
Before the days of ph test strips or digital ph meters, this woman
would have put a dab on the tip of her tongue to see if the soap
was too "hot," or akaline. If it stung the tongue, she added fat and threw some more wood on the fire.
The chemistry for natural soap making is essentially the same--oils + lye + water = soap. Today most soap makers use fixed vegetable oils such as castor, coconut, grape, or almond. Each oil adds a particular attribute to the final soap. Be Kind uses glycerin (cleans, softens, attracts moisture to skin), saponified soybean oil, castor oil (lather), sweet almond oil (moisturizing). With all the glycerin that we keep in the soap, the basic recipe doesn't need much--maybe some vinegar to adjust the ph and an essential oil or fragrance. Just like the wash woman, I taste my soap as well. Then, I follow up with my handy dandy digital ph meter, calibrated before each use.
I like making soap like the wash woman did--a primitive process, I guess. But, she didn't have all the advanced tools that I do--my boat paddle. And I'm sure glad we have a GE front loader and not that wooden bucket. Sometimes, if the work clothes are bad enough, they go in a bucket of water and some WARHORSE, then left to dry.
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