How to Make Medieval Soap(medievalists.net)
medievalists.net
How to Make Medieval Soap
http://www.medievalists.net/2019/09/how-to-make-medieval-soap/
46 comments
Oof, nowadays recipes call for adding the lye to the fat, rather than the fat to the lye. The lye will react with the fat to produce heat, and it’s much better to ramp up the ratio of lye to fat rather than introducing a small amount of fat to the lye. It doesn’t mention curing the soap, either, which both hardens the soap and allows the reaction to complete. It makes the soap last a lot longer and helps avoid getting burnt by untracked lye. I wonder if the weaker ash-based lye solution is safer overall than commercially available pure lye.
The fact that the recipe mentions "beating down" the soap leads me to believe that it is describing what people nowadays call the "hot process". You keep cooking the soap until it is fully saponified and it does not require further curing.
> I wonder if the weaker ash-based lye solution is safer overall than commercially available pure lye.
My understanding is that yes, it will be safer purely because it's a weaker lye solution. It'll be more likely to completely react, and even if it doesn't it will be more dilute and less likely to cause skin problems or burning. But it'll be slower, and less reliable to get the right concentrations to make the same soap over and over.
My understanding is that yes, it will be safer purely because it's a weaker lye solution. It'll be more likely to completely react, and even if it doesn't it will be more dilute and less likely to cause skin problems or burning. But it'll be slower, and less reliable to get the right concentrations to make the same soap over and over.
Also, you can get some pH paper.
This video of a centuries old soap making factory in Palestine always fascinated me:
https://youtu.be/aWmFMDr7y0U
https://youtu.be/aWmFMDr7y0U
That has got to be (some of) the most tedious, mind numbing work I've come across.
Clearly you've never had to attend meetings in most of corporate America
There's been a hell of a lot of manual labour like that throughout history. We should remember how lucky we are that we don't have to do that.
I wonder if they can (or are already in the process of) "uprating" to the kind of market Japanese Washi paper currently enjoys. It is not only a product, but kind of an art, too.
Nablus makes amazing cheese as well:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nabulsi_cheese
I sometimes buy Aleppo soap. It's great stuff made according to an ancient olive/laurel oil recipe.
Yeah, I've switched over almost entirely, to Aleppo soap or olive oil soaps from Greece (which seem to not have the laurel oil present in Aleppo soap), and am very happy. Skin feels a lot less taut and dry than it used to, to give an unscientific opinion.
Out of curiosity, what do you pay for it? At the moment I can get rough cut Aleppo soap for about €1.10 here in Germany. I've heard it's dirt cheap in Syria.
I get mine from a small grocery store in my hometown in Lebanon. I pay around $3 for a kilo which contains usually some 8 cubes of soap.
Nice price! I wonder what shipping from Lebanon to Europe costs...
I'm not sure tbh, Aramex typically charges inbound shipments around $9 per 500 grams. However I must note that I'm not getting the best price. If I take a short trip to villages I can buy in bulk which is way, way cheaper. And these soap bars last very long.
Where do you buy yours? And what brand/maker can u recommend? I’ve tried amazon, and the one I found that was actually Aleppo soap seems to have gone out of business since, and in true amazon fashion, the bar I got from them was manufactured 2 years before I got it...
I checked this out and I'll definitely be ordering some soon. Surprised this isn't more popular.
Good stuff right there, as it requires no industrial products.
Will come in handy during the coming climate apocalypse.
Will come in handy during the coming climate apocalypse.
A friend gave me some home-made soap, and she told me to let it dry a few days before storing it. This means there is some excess water from the fat-lye mixture, or is this a different recipe?
That’s intriguing but will be awesome to give it a tryout! Medieval have the quality in many things they do.
I wonder how effective this soap is when used as a cleaning agent compared to commercial options.
We make soap at home, from vegetable oils, lard and other fats. Just basic cold-process stuff, erring ever so slightly on the side of over-fatted soap.
It works great, it cleans well and I haven't had any issues with dry skin since we started using it.
The only real downside is that we get a bit of soap scum in the shower, but it's manageable.
It works great, it cleans well and I haven't had any issues with dry skin since we started using it.
The only real downside is that we get a bit of soap scum in the shower, but it's manageable.
This is essentially Savon de Marseille. Some still swear by it.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Marseille_soap
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Marseille_soap
That’s essentially any “pre-industrial” bar of soap.
How so? That page says Marseille Soap is made from vegetable oils, whereas the recipe in the article uses animal fat.
Animal fat is also allowed in Savon de Marseille as long as it qualifies under regulation CE 1774/2002 on the use of animal derivatives for cosmetics.
The point is that it's a very plain soap and goes back to the 14th century.
(I had linked to the English wikipedia article but it's the French one that has more details, sorry for the confusion.)
The point is that it's a very plain soap and goes back to the 14th century.
(I had linked to the English wikipedia article but it's the French one that has more details, sorry for the confusion.)
Probably not as good, but still somewhat effective. There seems to be an entire niche of artisanal soap makers out there at every farmers market/craft fare hawking their olive/palm/whatever soaps that smell of tobacco and cedarwood sea foam.... from what I’ve used of them, they work, just not as well/completely.
Generally, I think artisanal soapmakers buy lye flakes rather than making it from ash. Fundamentally, you need lye, water, and fat (or oil). Usually I think vegetable oils are used, rather than animal fat.
You can get beef suet quite cheaply at a butcher; I think I paid $2/lb or less. This is easily rendered into beautiful white tallow, which in turn makes a lovely soap. You can mix in some olive or coconut oil if you like, but there's no technical reason you can't use pure animal fat to make soap.
It may reduce your potential customers a bit, especially at a particularly crunchy farmer's market, but the soap will be fine :)
It may reduce your potential customers a bit, especially at a particularly crunchy farmer's market, but the soap will be fine :)
Proctor & Gamble was founded in Cincinnati near the slaughterhouses where tallow was readily available. William Proctor made candles and James Gamble made soap. https://news.pg.com/blog/procter-meets-gamble
Procter
Most soaps use tallow (beef fat) as it's the cheapest and most plentiful fat, due to the beef industry making a lot of it. But vegetable oil-based is the more "attractive" soap; it's generally modified to be softer on the skin and causes less harsh reactions than tallow, and of course there's vegan soap.
If you have too much lye in it, it will be ridiculously "effective", as its caustic basic property will hurt your skin. Too much tallow, and you essentially just smear fat on yourself.
No real reason why this, blended well to a reasonable pH level, would not be as effective as what we have today.
No real reason why this, blended well to a reasonable pH level, would not be as effective as what we have today.
Further, it's likely our society places a disproportionately large emphasis on "super-effective" cleaning agents.
We don't need to wipe off every drop of our skin oil every day in order to eliminate bad smells or function regularly and healthfully around others.
We don't need to wipe off every drop of our skin oil every day in order to eliminate bad smells or function regularly and healthfully around others.
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Your skin has oils. It's a good thing to be on the oil side of the balance. If you're on the other side the excess lye is making more soap out of you.
Everlasting soap?
I've made soap using tallow I rendered at home and lye from the hardware store. It works great! I'm not sure what purpose the salt or flour serves.
This is a legitimate cold processed soap recipe, just like you’d buy at a fancy store or farmers market. Unfortunately most “soap” you buy in stores is actually a detergent bar, which is much stronger.
This comment sent me down a mini rabbit-hole to find the differences between soap & detergent: https://www.nycoproducts.com/resources/blog/simple-science-t...
Anyone else read this as 'soup'? Just me?
I mean, after eating tide pods[1], might as well... :D
[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Consumption_of_Tide_Pods
[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Consumption_of_Tide_Pods
Yup, I was expecting a soup recipe.