Re: Potassium & wood ashes
At 11:54 AM 4/12/2000 -0400, you wrote:
>Gene,
> Right after I posted the info on "ancient cultures", I went to
>www.AskJeeves.com and asked How is soap made? One of the links was to a
>woman, born in 1912, who as a child regularly took part in the process
>of soap-making, starting with rendering the fat trimmed from meat.
> I know that some people make soap as a hobby and saw a number of
>recipes that call for specific brands of lye. Does the fact that several
>companies still sell lye mean that a *lot* of people still make soap?
>Lye is used in soap and drain cleaner, but I don't know of any other
>common uses.
> I wonder if people returned to homemade soap during the depression?
>
>Janet
>
They certainly did. My grandmother's soap was very harsh on the skin, so my
mother just shaved it into the washing machine, and it was the laundry soap
for a number of years after the Depression. I think soap was rationed
during WWII, wasn't it? I think many, many of the scented soaps, in the
shape of a bunny or flower blossom or whatever, are made by hobby soap
artists who use lye and cheap lard, herbs, etc. Margaret L
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