Soft Soap in 1906?

[shadowrider]

I've been reading a fur tanning book written in 1906.
Some of the cleaning and conditioning recipes call for soft soap.
Do any of you soap makers know if there is a recipe to make this soap, or is there a current equivalent?
Maybe just liquid soap would be okay.
I'm trying to be as original as possible.

Thanks
shadowrider

 

[patandchickens]

I would suggest trying to find other similar "recipes" for tanning, in hopes that they will phrase things differently so you can triangulate on what they really mean?

For whatever it's worth, according to the Oxford English Dictionary, "1. a. A smeary, semi-liquid soap, made with potash lye; potash soap." The date of first attribution is 1634, with the first attribution of the expression used with the meaning of "flattery" being 1830 and the first use of that expression as a verb being 1840.

If you read this link http://www.alcasoft.com/soapfact/history.html they talk about soft vs hard soap about half or 2/3 of the way through the page.

I do not know for sure that this is what your tanning recpe author means, but from my vague memory of tanning stuff, I *think* it probably is.

Good luck, have fun,

Pat

 

[audmkamp]

I know that a Mary Kay product set for making your hands super soft was started by the wife of a hide tanner. Everyone loved how soft his hands were. It is a set of 3 products (soft hands? skily hands? don't remember the names.) I bet one of those three items is close to what you're looking for.

 

[freemotion]

Totally guessing here.....Soap made on the farm was often made with homemade lye and the strength was not always what was ideal for making a nice, hard soap. Also, not all fat is created equal, and fat from some areas of the animal is better than from other areas. I wonder if it was referring to a batch of soap, inevitable, that simply never hardened and was put into a crock or jar for use rather than a bar. Or maybe it was made that way on purpose by using inferior fats.

Again, just thinking out loud....

 

[patandchickens]

According to that link I posted, homemade lye soap was relatively soft, unless processed "in town" into a harder form.

Pat

 

[freemotion]

Ooops, sorry Pat, I was skimming and missed the link...... interesting!