What is "lye soap"?

[Joni342]

Okay, I have learned by reading this forum and researching that all soap is made with lye, but there is no lye in the resulting soap due to saponification.

What, then, is the soap that we have all heard of that they made in the old days called "lye soap"? It brings to mind this harsh and abrasive kind of soap to me. I actually bought a bar of lye soap (made the old fashioned way, in a big pot over a fire) at a craft fair, and I haven't used it because it stinks.

Is there a difference in what we think of as "lye soap" and what you all are making?

Sorry for the perhaps dumb question...I'm already trying to think of how to explain this to people when i start making my own soap.

 

[gunner]

Just curious, but what does it "stink" like?

 

[soapbuddy]

My grandmother made old fashioned lye soap. Yes, it was harsh, but it washed the laundry really well.

 

[Joni342]

It just does not smell good. sorry don't know how to describe it. :shock: But anyway, what is it that makes it lye soap?

 

[carebear]

Lye soap is what we make, but often it is used to refer to poorly formulated soaps such as were made 'back in the day' when lye calculators and standard-strength lye was not available and when people used easily available fats only - so it was typically harsh and made from lard.

 

[Healinya]

I never really thought about how back in the day they didn't have batteries for their scales lol... I've talked to people who would have used 'lye soap' when they were little during the early 1900's... they'd say 'that stuff was harsh, it burned sometimes'

 

[Jerry S]

Lye soap

You hit it right on the nose Carebear…
My mom was a farm girl and made a lot of soap in her day. She called it lye-soap, which is just a generic term used in the early days for soap, since soap is made from lye.
I started using some of her recipes long time ago just for the fun of making some soap. (made her feel good.. ). Now hand made soap making has been brought to a whole different level with the aid of soap calculators, different oils, fragrances etc..
Jerry

 

[paillo]

Re: Lye soap

i'm amazed when i see national-chain 'lye soap' in our local hardware stores, selling for $6 and $7 a bar and with inferior ingredients. fortunately for me, one such store has asked me to bring in some of my soap. of course i'm not going to label it 'lye soap', more like 'hard-working-hands soap'. but really interesting how some 'old time' products, even with their dubious connotations, are back in vogue...

 

[xyxoxy]

My Dad made "lye soap" on the farm where he grew up. He used "a can of lye" to so many pounds of lard that they rendered from the hogs that they raised and sold. Of course they didn't have internet or lye calculators... I'm not sure they even had any sort of precise scale.

I do know that he had one recipe for laundry and one recipe for bar soap and that it was harsh stuff. When I started making my own soap he was suspicious until he tried it... now he's sold.

So lye soap is what we make... the technology is just better these days.

 

[tespring]

My grandma and grandpa as well as my mom used to make "lye" soap when they lived on the farm also. My mom did not even want to try my soaps at first because she said lye soap was so harsh, but then after she saw it, she was like..."THAT is not what we used to make." lol

I still cannot get one of my aunts to try it because she thinks it will eat her skin off. My other aunt who was recently severely burned while burning leaves tried it after she healed up and told me it was very mild and healing and preferred it over the soap that the doctor told her to use. The soap that I gave her was made with black cumin oil and had ground black cumin in it.

 

[Layne]

Re: Lye soap

i'm amazed when i see national-chain 'lye soap' in our local hardware stores, selling for $6 and $7 a bar and with inferior ingredients. fortunately for me, one such store has asked me to bring in some of my soap. of course i'm not going to label it 'lye soap', more like 'hard-working-hands soap'. but really interesting how some 'old time' products, even with their dubious connotations, are back in vogue...

saw some "national-chain 'lye soap' " in a hardware store near me also, grandma's or something like that.
It was gross looking and stunk like old nasty lard, you know that smell lard gets if left out open an went bad .
Had dos so bad it was running in the bottom of the shrink wrap.
Told the hardware guys it had dos, they just kinda looked at me with a cross eyed duhh wha? expresion. even after I explaned what dos is.
lol
you will never guess what some of them use it for. well you might.
but I'll tell you any way...
Catfish bait. :shock:
guess those fish are clean mouth catfish.

but yea, all soap is made with some form of lye, so all soap, even commercial soap is lye soap. just better knowledge now.

makes one wonder, what would happen if we ran out of lye?

In case of world wide lye shortage now selling clothes pins as nose pins.

 

[Jerry S]

Lye soap

Layne, it’s to bad about that "national-chain 'lye soap' …It would have been ok if its made with lard if it had been made correctly. Years ago Lard was the primary ingredient in most hard soaps that were made…kept early America clean for a 100 years ,...before people started to manufacture vegi this and vegi that ….
Jerry S