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Classic
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page 389
cover them over night; in the morning add more soft water, and boil until
thoroughly melted and of the consistency of taffy; pour into molds and you have
a nice cake of soap.--Miss Addie Munsell.
SOAP FOR FAMILY USE.--Much of the toilet and laundry soaps in the market are
adulterated with injurious, and, to some persons, poisonous substances, by which
diseases of the skin are occasioned or greatly aggravated, and great suffering
results, which is rarely traced to the real cause. The fat tried from animals
which have died of disease, if not thoroughly saponified, is poisonous, and
sometimes produces death. If in making soap the mass is heated to too high a
degree, a film of soap forms around the particles of fat; if at this stage
resin, sal-soda, silicate, and other adulterations are added, the fat is not
saponified, but filmed, and if poisonous or diseased it so remains, and is
dangerous to use. A bar of such soap has an oily feeling, and is unfit for use.
If it feels sticky, it has too much resin in it. The slippery feeling which
belongs to soap properly made can not be mistaken. Another test of pure soft or
hard soap is its translucent or semi-transparent appearance. Soft soap that is
cloudy is not thoroughly saponified, or else has been made of dirty or impure
grease. It is not only safer but more economical to buy pure soap, as the
adulterations increase the quantity without adding to the erasive power. Some of
the brown soaps sold in the market are seventy-five per cent. resin, and the
buyer gets only twenty-five per cent of what he wants for his money. Fifteen per
cent. of resin improves the quality, but any excess damages it, and is worse
than useless.
Almost any family may make excellent soft soap with very little expense by
saving grease, and using lye from pure hard wood ashes or pure potash. Never use
concentrated lye. Melt the grease and boil with the lye if possible; if not, put
cold lye into cask, melt the greaseand pour into the lye. Twenty-five pounds of
grease will make a thirty-two gallon cask of soap. Stir thoroughly occasionally
for a day or two. If the lye is too weak or too strong, it will not cut the
grease; if too strong, add water, if too weak, add lye. To test, take out some
in a dipper and experiment with it. The lye should bear up an egg so that only a
part as large as a ten cent piece is exposed. The soap when done should be
almost transparent and free from any cloudy appearance. Always put lye or soap
in soft wood casks. Pine is the best. It will not pay any family to make hard
soap, but great care should be taken to get only that which is perfectly pure.
"Dobbin's Eclectic" is the only pure brand I know of that is widely sold.--I. F.
Fletcher, Minneapolis, Minn.
TO DRY-STARCH, FOLD AND IRON SHIRTS.--In doing up shirts, wristbands and collars
should be starched first if the collars are sewed on. Dip them into the hot
starch, and as soon as the hand can bear the heat (and dipping the hand in cold
water often will expedite the work) rub the starch in very thoroughly, taking
care that no motes or lumps of starch adhere to the linen. Then starch the
shirt-bosom the same way, keeping the starch hot all the time by setting the
dish in a deep pan of water. Rub it into the linen very carefully, pass the
finger under the plaits and raise them up so that the starch shall penetrate all
through evenly. Some rub it into the plaits with a piece of clean linen, but we
think the hand does the work more thoroughly and evenly. When perfectly
starched, shake out the shirt evenly, fold both sides of the bosom together and
bring the shoulders and side seams together evenly; that will lay the sleeves
one over the other, and after pulling the wristbands into shape smoothly they
can thus be folded together and the wristbands rolled tightly and, with the
sleeves; be folded and laid even on the sides of the shirt. Then turn the sides
with the sleeves over on the front, and beginning at the neck roll the whole
tightly together,
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