Go Forth and Make Soap
What is elegance? Soap and water! 1
Did you ever think that one day we may run out of soap due to supply chain issues or it becoming so expensive you wait 4 days before taking a bath? Well, fellow Refugettes, this reality seems to be creeping up on us. But did you know our ancestors and even the Ancients made soap with resources commonly found in their environment?
Over the last 50 years, soap manufacturers, knowing the versatility of soap, had made this commodity into a plethora of specialty product lines. Today, we have a soap for laundry, dishwashing, bathing, cleaning, etc. You name it, there is a special soap made specifically for a explicite use. It is a powder, a liquid, a spray, is fast-acting, lifts stains, sooths skin, eliminates bacteria and odors. Wow, so many choices! We even made soap into an art form coming in multiple shapes, sizes, colors, and smells -- decorative pieces not meant to be used but seen in a distinctive spot of our decor to appreciate. What?
My, my, my… has progress made us forget the basics, eh? We’ve been conditioned to never use the same soap for two different purposes. Oh, no! Blaspheme! Something BAD will happen if you do! Have you ever put dishwashing liquid into your dishwasher machine? Yep, I have and something bad did happen! I have no doubt it was a conspiracy of the soap manufacturers to deliberately develop products this way to assure we get used to buying 10 different kinds of soaps when our ancestors made their own ‘one soap fits all’. Sure, there were no ‘washing machines’ like today, but guess what? The dirty little secret (pun intended) is we don’t need 10 different soaps! We can make our own cheaper, in larger quantities, perfume and dye-free, environmentally friendly, and in various strengths for a needed purpose.
In the link below you can learn from Kate Shaw at ‘Heart’s Content Farmhouse’ website on how to make soap for beginners. She “walks through the science, safety, ingredients, and process of making your own soap’ Everything from baby soap to dish soap in your kitchen2, just like grandma did using lye and oil.
Discover the wonders of homemade soap that covers a wide spectrum of uses. However, it must be said, the only thing one shouldn’t do with soap is to eat it, unless you need to discipline a child. Yet, another lesson from our grandparents we lost to modernity. But that is a topic for another article.
Remember, less is more, simple is easier, and ‘cleanliness is next to godliness’.
Soap Making for Beginners:
https://heartscontentfarmhouse.com/soap-making-for-beginners/
Quote by Cecil Beaton - (1904 – 1980) British fashion designer including stage and costume design, photographer, diarist, painter, and interior designer.
Shaw, Kate (2020). Heart’s Content Farmhouse; How to Make Soap for Beginners. Retrieved 18 December 2022