Homemade laundry Lye Soap Recipe
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Ingredients: |
Ingredients: 2 cans of lye
2 quarts of soft water
5 quarts of melted grease
1/2 lb. of Borax
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Directions: |
Directions:Mix lye and water in a granite dishpan or a crock. Let cool. Add the other ingredients. Stir for 10 minutes and pour into a mold.
(A recipe from an Amish cookbook)
To make lye soap, lard ( mom used cracklings from frying down pork fat to make lard, grease from bacon) and lye were mixed over an open fire (usually the cook stove that was in the basement), and stirred for hours with a long handled spoon. Lye is a caustic agent and will burn the skin if too much is used. If too little is used the soap would not harden. It is said when the a paddle stuck straight up the soap would be ready. It was then pour into metal pans and allowed to dry or harden, a process that took anywhere from two weeks to a month. After it was hardened it would be cut up in smaller bars for easier use. Mom used her lye soap mainly for laundry often in place of laundry powder. It was excellent in removing grass stains from knees of pants or dad's dirty grimy work clothes. She always had the whitest laundry.
This recipe is to remember the days when we grew up. Anyone wanting to make lye soap is advised to check into getting a good set of instructions. Lye is a caustic agent that when made into soap the right way can be used to wash anything from your face to a baby's bottom to clothes. |
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