Interesting soap recipe

[umbrella]

I found this on cooks.com. I wonder what happened when they added their water to lye. Or the ammonia. Or whatever...

HOMEMADE LYE SOAP 5 lbs. (3 qts.) grease (bacon cooked in microwave renders clean grease needed for white soap)
1 can lye
1/2 c. Borax
1/2 c. ammonia
1 qt. water
Pour lye in pan, add quart of cool water slowly, stir with wooden spoon. Set aside to cool. Then add Borax and ammonia, then slowly pour in kitchen grease and let set, but stir occasionally until consistency of honey. Then pour in containers.

 

[Susie]

Interesting in what way? In the Chinese curse, "May you live in interesting times." way? If you can't run it through a lye calculator, you can't be sure of what you are going to get. And I think this was unwise to post in an open forum until/unless you had tried it and knew for sure it was safe. What were you thinking?

 

[snappyllama]

This looks like one of those pioneer-ish recipes. From the days the contracting toe-foot...

Whoops - Cursing...removed clip. It was a clip from the movie "A Million Ways to Die in the West".

 

[jade-15]

Interesting as in "have a look at this old recipe", and the questions posed by the opening poster. I see nothing about "you should try this" and I doubt anyone would... I am also wondering if there were many lye volcanos, and what the point of the ammonia is.
Interesting is interesting, it doesn't have to be defined.
There's no need to be rude.

 

[Obsidian]

I think my gramma used to use borax and ammonia in her soap, I can ask her about it later.

 

[shunt2011]

I don't see a problem with posting this at all. Sounds like he/she is curious as to what would happen when this was done. Not stating to try it. It's kind of like the ashes for lye posts. Curious minds want to know. Maybe a disclaimer on it would help saying do not try this at home. Just my thoughts anyhow. It amazes me some of what folks use to do and perhaps some not so smart folks still may be.

 

[new12soap]

Pretty sure that slowly pouring liquid on to lye was far more "interesting" than I generally like! It had to have boiled, volcanoed, and fumes enough to choke the sky.

Ammonia was and still is used in some soap recipes as a grease cutter. Makes a great stain stick. This looks like an old-time recipe for laundry soap.

 

[umbrella]

I guess I took it for granted that nobody would actually try the recipe, but find it as bizarre and frightening as I did. It just seemed to go against pretty much everything I know about soapmaking. I'm sorry to have caused distress. It's why I usually keep my mouth (or fingers if typing) shut.

 

[Obsidian]

No reason to keep your mouth shut, you didn't do anything wrong. Some people just freak out a bit whenever they see a "interesting" recipe on the forum.

 

[shunt2011]

I agree you didn't do anything wrong. Don't stop posting. You will find many different opinions and views. But you were sharing something that would be a total disaster if tried. Amazing what some folks did at one time.

 

[OliveOil2]

Add water to the Lye?

I don't think many people who see the recipe in this contex will want to try it. It appears to be a cleaning or laundry soap recipe. Besides the cup measurements there could be a problem putting the lye in a pan and adding water.

 

[IrishLass]

No need to keep your mouth shut, Umbrella. There's nothing wrong with voicing one's curiosity.

I've actually seen this recipe being discussed a few years ago both here and over on the Dish forum when the subject of stain sticks came up. From what I remember, it's an old recipe from way-back-when for laundry soap, and one of the members here -Mike in PDX- adapted it into a stain stick using kerosene or turpenoid in place of the ammonia, but using safer soaping methods, of course.

Although Mike hasn't posted here in a long time, here's one of the old threads that discusses his stain sticks:

http://www.soapmakingforum.com/showthread.php?t=4526


IrishLass

 

[pamielynn]

I love these old recipes; it's part of our heritage!

 

[JustBeachy]

Pretty sure that slowly pouring liquid on to lye was far more "interesting" than I generally like! It had to have boiled, volcanoed, and fumes enough to choke the sky.

Ammonia was and still is used in some soap recipes as a grease cutter. Makes a great stain stick. This looks like an old-time recipe for laundry soap.

Agreed on all parts. Like an old recipe for laundry soap my grandma used to make, "caused it dissolved better". haha

 

[seven]

i've been meaning to try Mike's stain stick recipe, thanks for posting that link IrishLass

 

[Jstar]

Im not bothered by recipes like that..my G-mother used to make soap as did her mother and so on..and they didn't have lye calculators back then..they also had huge cast iron pots over an open fire outside in the yard, so Im sure if anything boiled over it was just one of those things they had to deal with.

 

[DeeAnna]

Recipes similar to this have been discussed in detail. They might be a bit unusual, but certainly not bizarre, and they shouldn't be frightening. It's just chemistry ... and fairly sensible chemistry at that. See http://www.soapmakingforum.com/showthread.php?t=41965