Unboiled Soap

New Zealand Listener, Volume 5, Issue 123, 31 October 1941, Page 46

Unboiled Soap

Dear Aunt Daisy, Listening with interest to your session, and hearing you mention that a lady had spoiled a garment when soap

she was making boiled over on her stove, I thought perhaps listeners would like to have my recipe for soap. I have found it less trouble to make, and bet-+ ter, than any I have ever made. It is wonderful for cleaning very ditty working clothes, as well as ordinary household linen; and you don’t have to boil it either. Well, here it is: Soap.-First clarify 7 lbs, of fat to free it of salt and rubbish. Let it get cold; remove from receptacle and clean the top and bottom of the set fat. Then place it in the tin or copper, and melt it again. When melted, dissolve 1 Ib. of caustic soda in 3 pints of cold water, separately. Stir it well, and leave it till the fat and the caustic water are both about the same temperature. Add to the fat one heaped cup of borax, one cup of cloudy ammonia, and six-pennyworth of oil of citronella, which can be bought at any chemist. Stir in well; and then gradually stir in the caustic water; keep stirring till it is almost of a honey consistency; then leave to get cold. It must be cut as soon as well set, as it gets very hard. When washing very. dirty clothing, all you do is to wet the article in hot water, and rub with this soap, roll up, and leave for ten minutes; after which it takes very little rubbing to bring the worst articles clean. I hope this may be of use to other working men’s wives, and so save them the trouble of watching over boiling soap. I have never made soap that has been as good as this, and believe me, ‘I have made many lots of both boiled soap, and also of this recipe, which latter beats all the rest.

R.

M.

(Canterbury).