Chicken Coop Chatter©
Pioneers made their own soap, though Castile soap was around, it wasn't always available to the earliest pioneers when they made the trek. Pioneer soap making was a tad more involved than how we make it in modern days. And of course soap dates back to early puritan and colonial days and the process and recipes were handed down to each generation.
Lye was actually rendered from the wood stove ash, by a long drawn out process of mixing hot rain water and ash, then allowing the two to meld, the liquid was then drained off, set on hot stove to boil to achieve the proper strength of lye. Lye is very caustic, and extreme caution must be used whether making your own lye by the pioneer method, or purchasing lye from your supplier. The way they tested the lye, was to put a chicken feather in it. If the feather dissolved, the lye was the proper strength. Another means of testing was with a chicken egg. If the egg sunk to the bottom, the lye was not strong enough, but if it bobbed at the top the lye was the proper strength. While the lye was being made they rendered the animal fat through a process of cooking out the fat then straining it; bacon or slab pork was most commonly used, but other animal fats work as well and the pioneers used what was available to them. As you can see, soap making was not a quick process when made from scratch.
For our purposes here, I have simplified the process for the modern lifestyle and discretionary time frame. Hands on time, my Rose water soap will take about an hour. But it needs to cure, and that will take a few weeks and you need to do nothing except wait.
SUPPLIES NEEDED
A good quality bar of soap (unscented)
Rose Water (See my tutorial for making Pioneer Rose Water)
Essential oils if desired (Vanilla or Lavender go well with rose)
Hand mixer
Mini chopper
Grater
Grate the bar of soap into a medium size bowl. Pour about a 1/4 cup rose water over the grated soap. Allow to sit 1/2 hour. Blend with hands just to incorporate. With the hand mixer, beat the rose water soap until fluffy. Set aside 2 or 3 days to dry and firm up a bit.
After a couple days, dip hands into the rose water, then press the soap into molds or form with hands in the desired shape. (Soap balls are a common shape). Press dried rose petals into the soap to decorate if desired and allow to cure for 4-6 weeks. When the soap is cured, set in a fancy soap dish or tie with burlap and ribbon for gift giving. Imagining that mold would have been anything accessible to the pioneers, I used egg shells. I stuff each half of the egg shell, then dampened each half to *glue* the halves together. You can peel away the shell for a perfectly formed egg soap. Some pioneers did have soap and candle molds among their supplies, that they brought with them over the prairie.
NOTE: When I made the Pioneer Rose Water, I reserved the rose petals, ground those in my mini chopper and added them to the beaten, fluffy soap. The soap will change color and there will be flecks of the rose petals incorporated into the soap. If you would rather not add the ground rose petals, you can use a soap making dye to color your soap if desired. I like that my natural soap also has a natural dye. Depending on the color of your rose petals as to what color your soap will be. Though I used deep red rose petals, the soap is a lovely shade of sea foam green. There is no need to discard the cheese cloth, just rinse it out, let it dry and reuse, just as the pioneers would have done.
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