How To Make Soap

Here's How:

1. Put on the fire any quantity of lie [lye] you chuse that is strong enough to bear an egg.
2. To each gallon add three quarters of a pound of clean grease.
3. Boil it very fast and stir it frequently, a few hours will suffice to make it good soap.
4. When you find by cooling a little on a plate that it is a thick jelly and no grease appears, put in salt in the proportion of one pint to three gallons.
5. Let it boil a few minutes.
6. Pour into tubs to cool.
7. Should the soap be thin, add a little water to that in the plate, stir well, and by that means ascertain how much water is necessary for the whole quantity. Do this before the salt is added.
8. Next day, cut out the soap, melt it, and cool it again; this takes out all the lie, and keeps the soap from shrinking when dried.

Tips:

1. A strict conformity to these rules will banish the lunary bugbear which has so long annoyed soap makers.
2. Kitchen grease should be clarified in a quantity of water, or the salt will prevent its incorporation with the lie.
3. Soft soap may be made by putting the lie and grease together in exact proportions, and placing it under the influence of a hot sun for eight or ten days, stirring it well four or five times a day.