We tried making soap like our ancestors ~ From wood ashes to old fashioned bar soap

Comments · 1.3K

• TE

  @tellervo. · 3 years ago (edited) · pinned

  This was our first time making old fashioned soap so there was a lot of trial and error involved😄 We mostly followed the instructions in this blog post: <a href="https://www.primalsurvivor.net/wood-ash-soap/">https://www.primalsurvivor.net/wood-ash-soap/</a> <br>Watch the 6 week lather test here: <a href="https://www.youtube.com/shorts/FWhGW9lDCf8">https://youtube.com/shorts/FWhGW9lDCf8?feature=share</a><br>Have you made soap with wood ash lye? How did it go?

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• KA

  @katierose7539 · 3 years ago

  My grandmother insisted that ashes from hard wood be kept separate specifically for making soap. With 8 children during the Depression, she was the queen of making something out of seemingly nothing.

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• HA

  @hatjodelka · 3 years ago

  In Britain it was common to use a plant. Saponaria officinalis, also known as Soapwort. You just mush it up in water and strain it and use the liquid. Its lather is very effective and very gentle, so much so it&apos;s used in museums and heritage properties for safely cleaning tapestries, delicate fabrics etc.

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• KA

  @KarinaMD.11 · 3 years ago

  Very well done! &nbsp;This is exactly how &quot;black&quot; soap has been made in my country Guatemala for many years. &nbsp;You can infuse rosemary branches with the lard to give it a special color and aroma. &nbsp;Here we shape the soaps into balls, they are balled while they are still warm, it is not put into molds. &nbsp;Some people don&apos;t even remove the ash from the final lye, they put both in the soap. &nbsp;It is very good for the skin and hair, it is even great for washing white clothes and removing stains. &nbsp;Some modern techniques here put a little coconut oil to help harden the soap and a little castor oil to improve the lather, and of course with these additional ingredients you have to run the recipe through a soap calculator. &nbsp;And if it is for cosmetic use, they add rosemary essential oil or fragrance.<br> This ash bleach is even very good at whitening clothes instead of using chlorine or other modern bleaches.

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• EL

  @elijahjamesperez8936 · 3 years ago

  Im a soap maker too, and I think you just had to stir without any pauses and stops to prevent separation, (because thats what happened here, it happened to my first few learning batches because I was too impatient) so yeah no stops on the stirring until it turns into condensed milk consistency. other than that, GREAT JOB &lt;3

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• JA

  @JayLooney · 1 year ago

  If you&apos;ve got the option, it&apos;s typically easier to make a fire from old aged/dried wood, rather than young, greenwood full of moisture

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• XI

  @xionix4 · 3 years ago

  A couple of fire tips: use the back/spine of the knife when striking the ferrocerium rod to avoid dulling your knife. It&apos;ll work just as well if not better. Also, you can hold the knife stationary using your shin as a brace for your hand holding the knife, and pull the ferro rod back. That will help to avoid scattering your tinder or knocking it. If you process the birch bark down into finer fibers and bundle them into something like a bird&apos;s nest, you should be able to get it going in 1-3 strikes. That will preserve your ferro rod as well. Hope this helps some.

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• CR

  @crowznest438 · 3 years ago

  Where I live in Appalachia, women just poured the same lye water back through the ash hopper a few times to concentrate it enough to float an egg. &nbsp;They made a soft soap with homemade lye and hard soap with store bought.

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• ME

  @MegaDavyk · 2 years ago

  Imagine if you were in a survival situation and you destroyed the sharp edge of you knife every time you wanted to lite a fire.

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• MA

  @marjoriejohnson6535 · 2 years ago

  I tried making soap with wood ashes and venison tallow. It took 3x the amount if ashes than the old booklet i had as a reprint that i bought in the cooperstown museum.

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• BL

  @blzahz7633 · 3 years ago

  <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gCUnRYJypVc&amp;t=940">15:40</a> About using too much fat in the soap: I think it&apos;s better if you use too much of that than too little, this means all the lye gets to react, if use too little fat then you might end up with unreacted lye in the soap. Also, part of that of excess fat is probably glycerol, which is a by-product of saponification. The salt you added actually drives the glycerol out from the soap, which makes it brittle, because normally some glycerol is left in the soap. The &quot;excess fat&quot; probably forms two layers if you let it sit in a jar for a bit: one being the unreacted fat and the other a salt-glycerol solution. <br><br>Something to note: I have almost zero experience in soap making, I&apos;m just looking at it from the chemistry perspective. So take all this with a grain of salt.

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• AR

  @artheaded1 · 3 years ago

  As a kid in the 1970&apos;s I learned about making soap this way from the Foxfire books. Finally seeing it done in real life makes me very happy. Thanks for sharing this!

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