SPECIAL SOAPS A Soap from Caustic Soda Lye.— Use 3 pounds of quicklime and 6 pounds of sal soda, with 4 gallons of soft water to make a lye. Mix, boil, settle, and pour off the clear lye. Bring the lye to a boil and add 6 pounds of melted lard, stirring and boiling until it saponifies.
Whale-oil Soap.—This is prepared from whale-oil foot, a sediment pro duced in refining whale oil, by sapon ification with soda lye. It is used to destroy insects.
Soap Bark.—This substance, which can be bought of all druggists, is a good cleansing material for dark, sol id-colored garments. It cannot be used for light colors, as it has a ten dency to stain them.
Make an infusion of the soap bark by simmering it with gentle heat in water kept just at the boiling point for 2 or 3 hours, in the proportion of 5 cents' worth of bark to 1 quart of boiling water. Strain and bottle for future use. This may be used with a sponge to remove grease spots, afterwards rinsing with clear soft water.
Scouring Soap.—Melt the scraps of soap left in the kitchen and laundry, or melt up any good white or yellow soap and add about half as much more, according to preference, of marble dust, powdered pumice stone, or a good quality of clean dry sand. The scouring soaps bought in the market usually cost about as much for sand and other impurities as for actual soap. Hence they are not eco nomical to buy.
Soap from Beef Gall. — Saponify with gentle heat in a copper kettle or earthenware jar, placed in a double boiler, 1 pound of cocoanut oil by adding pound of caustic soda and stirring constantly. Add pound of hot white spirits of turpentine; sim mer with gentle heat 3 or 4 hours, and then bring to a boil. When the contents have worked clear add 1 pound of oxgall. Now add from 1 to 2 pounds of shaved castile soap, stirring until the mixture is of about the consistency of dough. Take off the fire and allow to cool. This is a splendid soap for washing delicate fabrics, fine silk, lace, and ribbons, and is especially recommended for delicate colored articles, as it will not cause the colors to run.
Masquere's Acid Soap. — Shave 1 pound of hard white castile soap in enough water to make a stiff paste. Add ounce of oil of vitriol, gradu ally rubbing the mass in a mortar or earthenware bowl until the acid is thoroughly incorporated. This is a strong detergent, to be used where an alkali would be harmful.
Castile or Marseilles Soap. — This soap is usually imported and is made in southern Europe. It is based on olive oil. But as the pure olive oil produces a hard, brittle soap difficult to dissolve in water, it is usually combined with about 20 per cent of rape-seed oil. This soap is noted for its purity, freedom from animal odors, and lasting quality. It is much used for the toilet, especially for infants, and for laces and delicate fabrics.
Other vegetable oil soaps may be made from castor oil and palm oil. The palm oil has a strong yellow color and a rather agreeable odor. Hence it is often used to scent and give a certain transparency to yellow soap and to disguise the presence of rosin.
Marine Soap.—A soap based upon the oil of the cocoanut. It is often used to wash in salt water for the reason that it is not decomposed eas ily by a weak solution of salt. It is remarkable for extreme hardness and for the quantity of water it will take up without becoming soft.
Sand Soaps. — These are ordinary soaps containing a mechanical mixture of sand, powdered pumice, fuller's earth, and alumina. They are useful for scouring purposes, but should be sold much cheaper, bulk for bulk, than pure soaps. These soaps have been replaced on the market in recent years by soaps containing a mixture of solu ble glass or sand combined with sodi um. This is a weak alkaline com pound. Hence the soaps containing them are alkaline, and unless they are rendered neutral by combining the al kali with rosin or fatty acids they may be injurious to the skin or to delicate fabrics.