Soap on campaign

[PogueMahone]

Re: Soap on campaign

Peter,

You need to re-read that FAQ.

soap does not contain lye

The end product does not contain lye.

alkali, sodium hydroxide, is used in the manufacturing of soap. It is necessary to use a strong alkali as a reagent during saponification

But we have to use it to make the soap because it causes the chemical reaction we need.

you are left only with soap, glycerin and a bit of skin-loving superfat

But it is all gone when the product is in final stage.

Does that make sense to you?

If you don't use the hydroxide, you don't get soap. You get some sort of congealed oil that might taste good on a salad.

[Virginia Mescher]

Re: Soap on campaign

All these posts have been interesting and thought provoking. With my research on laundry and candles, I have done quite a bit of research on soap. It is extremely difficult to respond to all the questions brought up here since I haven't researched the military.

I can give you some specifics about soap. Colgate started making soap in 1806 and Procter and Gamble started business in 1837. P&G was a major provider of both soap and candles for the US military. There were other soap companies as others have pointed out. According to the 1860s census, there were 614 soap and candle manufactures in the US (95 in western states, 260 in middle states, 130 in New England, 22 soap manufactures in the south and 26 soap and candle manufactures in the south, and 11 in the Pacific states. (I realize the totals don't match up to the 614 but I may have missed an entry or two.)

I looked at Historic Accounts (1859-1861) and found 207 sales (not total amounts sold) of soap. The types sold were turpentine (also called yellow or rosin soap and was the most popular), Chinese, variegated or mottled, ball soap, Ominbus, specifically Yankee, military soap (I haven't found a definition of this kind), simple cake soap, balls of T's soap, honey, shaving, fancy, toilet, transparent (glycerin), white (curd), Castile, and brown Windsor soap. The prices ranged according to the quality of the soap and the cheapest was the turpentine soap and it cost, $ .13/pound. A bar cost $ .10 so a bar may have been smaller than one pound.

I also checked other primary sources and found that soft soap or "green soap," made with "pot lye" or potassium hydroxide formed from mixing water and wood ashes. This soap was more caustic than hard soap. The pot lye and fat was cooked until it was thoroughly combined. After it finished cooking it was packed into barrels and shipped from the factory. Soft soap could be made hard with the addition of salt.

Hard soaps were milder since they were made with the alkaline barilla or sodium carbonate (washing soda). The soda was combined water and some type of fat such as tallow, olive, palm oil, almond oil, etc. to make a hard soap without the addition of salt.

After the introduction of concentrated lye (potassium hydroxide and later sodium hydroxide) hard soap could be made from the addition of water to the concentrated lye, and fat. Concentrated lye in individual packages was patented by George Thompson of East Tarentum, PA on July 24, 1855 (#13,325) and advertisements for the lye started appearing in newspapers in 1856.

Most home manufacture of soap resulted in soft soap, at least for those who had access to fat and wood ash. There were many instructions in cookbook and household books on how to make soap. There were also instructions on how to use inexpensive store bought soap to make the fancier soaps.

During the war, there was a scarcity of soap in the south because of the lack of soap factories and access to the raw materials. Pot lye they had but they also needed fat. With animals being run off, stolen, or "donated" to both armies, fat was at a premium. There were a great many recipes that gave suggestions on how to make soap with less fat but I don' t know how well they worked.

I think I got all the chemical names correct but if I didn't please let me know. Chemistry wasn't my strong point in high school and college. :)

Maybe in the future, I'll have time to do a full fledged article on soap.

[Hank Trent]

Re: Soap on campaign

Does all soap contain Lye?
No! A well-made, superfatted soap does not contain lye (sodium hydroxide).
This "old wives tale" started because the alkali, sodium hydroxide, is used in the manufacturing of soap. It is necessary to use a strong alkali as a reagent during saponification -- the chemical reaction that changes fats and oils into soap and glycerin. Once saponification is complete, however, you are left only with soap, glycerin and a bit of skin-loving superfat.

This is exactly the same as has been said above. Lye is used in the making, but if there's enough fat to react with all the lye, the lye and fat react to each other and are no longer separate entities after saponification. It's a semantic game: the soap "contains lye" in the sense that lye is used as an ingredient, but the lye is changed during the making, so it's no longer recognizable as "lye" anymore, and thus the soap "doesn't contain lye." One might as well say a Big Mac "doesn't contain raw beef," because even though it's made from raw beef, there's none in it when you eat it. :D

Also, if they're using sodium hydroxide, they're making soda soap, one common kind of soap in the period. Potassium hydroxide, leached from wood ashes, was another kind of period lye.

As far as glycerine, check out this, from 1860:

When soap is made an alkali is put into the oil and the glycerine is expelled, so that when the soap maker puts his soda or soda lye into the fat of any kind with which he makes his soap he expels his glycerine, and this was formerly the refuse of the soap maker. It was Chevreul who pointed out its nature and composition, and this it different materially from stearine and the acids. Glycerine which, at one time was the refuse of the boiler, is now applied to many different purposes. It has been used by the photographer for making one of his solutions. It has been used in medicine. It is a good substitute for cod liver oil. It may be used in tea... and although it is the object of the soap maker to get rid of the glycerine, and you may laugh at him for putting it back, yet Belmontine soap is made by the addition of a quantity of glycerine after it has been manufactured...

Hank Trent
hanktrent@gmail.com

[Stonewall_Greyfox]

Re: Soap on campaign

I do not know soap making, but I am familiar with the lye part. What Hank relates here is 100% on. Soap that contains more oil or fats will be easier on your skin, as there will be no excess lye left in the soap to irritate the skin.

In chemistry class (many years ago) my teacher warned us while handling a strong Sodium Hydroxide solution to be careful to not get it on our hands. We would know we had, when our fingers would become slippery, like having soapy water on them.

What was happening, was the Sodium Hydroxide would leach the oils and fats from our skin, making soap, or at least its precursor. Left long enough on the skin, enough oils and fats would be consumed to make your skin red and scaly, and you could actually develop a chemical burn that was slow in healing.

So the nice mild soaps many people prefer, just have more oils than the lye can bond with, and possibly glycerin and other skin-friendly materials and scents, leaving no free lye in the soap to leach the oils from your own skin.

As has been said by many...and Mr. Mueller specifically...this is CHEMISTRY...remember that class most of us slept during in high school, and sometimes college???

Well the labs were fun...

Paul B.

[Becky Morgan]

Re: Soap on campaign

Re the Andersonville soft soap, it is also worth noting that saponification is not instant. The box of soap may have been shipped in a hurry, like so much other wartime material, so it may not have had time to cure yet. MOST of the fat saponifies within the first few hours; however, you really shouldn't use freshly made soap for a week or two, because there IS some residual alkali at first, which will continue to react with the remaining free fat in the newborn soap. Standard advice is to let new soap sit for three weeks before you use it. That wasn't always practiced--I've read accounts of people using laundry soap the day it was made--but it's a wise precaution if you're dealing with what seems to be more sensitive modern skin, or possibly more sensitive modern people IN the skin. I find my fresh soap to be irritating for the first week or so, even though I superfat what we make.

Potassium hydroxide is still recommended for making clear soaps with lots of glycerin in them. I haven't tried dripping wood ashes for it, but it is certainly possible and I knew a lady who wouldn't make her soap any other way. Since she lived to be 96, I doubt it hurt her.

[MrsArmstrong]

Re: Soap on campaign

[QUOTE=VIrginia Mescher;152153]All these posts have been interesting and thought provoking.

military soap (I haven't found a definition of this kind), s

I found a reference for Military Shaving Soap
North American and United States Gazette, (Philadelphia, PA) Saturday, February 21, 1857, Issue 19, 947; col E
Toilet Soaps
[Sapons?] shaving compound
transparent wash [?] and Tablets
Military Shaving Soap,
Shaving creams and pomades,
Extracts for the handkerchief.
Colognes and toilet waters.
for sale whole sale at the Manufactory

Here is an interesting little blurb...
Fayetteville Observer, (Fayetteville NC) Monday, October 28, 1861, Issue 2317; Col B
Soap.- We have been requested by a soldier, to advise those having friends in the army for whom they are putting up packages of clothing, &c., not to forget to put in good big ball or blocks of Soap. He was very earnest on the subject, and we suppose there is good reason for the request. Perhaps the Yankees needing washing, and our boys desire to help them out of the dirt. Salisbury Watchman.

Susan Armstrong

[Edwin Carl Erwin]

period soap

I'm sure they had soap, but what kind? Just lye soap? Any specific manufacturers?

Andrew,

Kirk's Original Coco Castile Soap was first introduced in 1839 & is still sold today. Details about & history of the soap can be found on their website: www.kirksnatural.com/.

Regards,

[Pvt Schnapps]

Re: Soap on campaign

Thanks for the clarification, as it were, on soft soap, Ms. Morgan. This is a fun thread and I'm learning a lot.

In checking out a couple of the references Hank and others have cited, I'm struck by the number of mentions of palm oil. At first this struck me as an exotic product to associate with mid-19th century America, but it resonated with something else I came across in another field. The War Department used a goodly amount of cocoa matting to floor its offices in Washington during the war.

And, now that I think about it, according to the letter on Contingent Fund expenses for the fiscal year ending June 30, 1864, the Secretary's office bought "2 1/2 dozen fancy soap, at $3 a dozen" in late July, 1863, and in October added "1 gross Windsor soap" at $9, "1 gross honey soap" at $10, and 60 pounds of plain old "soap" at 10 cents a pound.

I suspect the honey soap was for VIPs. :)

[Virginia Mescher]

Re: Soap on campaign

Susan, thank you for the information on military soap. I guess it was just another name for shaving soap.

It might be a small point but I couldn't find that sodium hydroxide was used in soap making until the 1870s. This type of alkali makes hard soap without cooking and is called the cold process. For the most part, modern soaps use this type of alkali. Although it is a small point, it is a major departure from how soap was made before the cold process was developed.

I expect that modern hand-made soaps may use other types of chemical alkalis and then add other ingredients to the mix. If the soap-maker is using sodium hydroxide some liquid is added and part of that liquid could be goat's milk but lye is still needed.

Two bases were used to make soap in our time period. Potassium hydroxide (pot lye - wet, potassa -dry) was used to make soft soap. Sodium carbonate (washing soda) was used to make hard soap. To make soap using these alkalies, the mixture of alkali, liquid and fat had to be boiled until they were thoroughly combined or until saponification occurred. Then the soap had to cure.

Various fats and oils were used to make different soaps and the final milling processes determined the fineness of the soap. French milled soaps were very mild and very hard.

Even with the advent of the individual of packages of concentrated lye, the contents were either potassa or soda, not sodium hydroxide. In reading the instructions given for using the packages, the soap still needed to be boiled. Potassa still made soft soap which, with the addition of salt could be made hard, and soda made hard soap. Sometimes salt was combined with the powdered lye and it was a one step process.

There were a number of books and articles written on soap making in the period (and many of those are available online for all to read) and even more have been written on modern soap making (some are online and others are in your library). You don't have to be a chemist to understand the concept of soap making. Most people in the 19th century didn't understand the chemistry behind how soap was made but there were plenty of articles in magazines and even children's books that gave the basic information on soap making. It was a basic part of life and apparently people wanted to know how things were made.

I think that if we are talking about period soap we have to restrict out conversations to those soap-making methods and the types of soaps that were made at that time. It gets confusing when people bring modern prejudices into the picture. I'm not saying that everyone has to research soap making but try to keep in to 19th century mindset rather than bringing our 21st century ideas to the table.

It has been interesting reading about the military information on soap. From what I've read of the responses about soap and the military it seems that they did get soft soap but hard soaps of plain and fancy quality were ordered. Maybe someone can do additional research and find more on the sizes of hard soap bars, what sizes were the boxes, and how they were distributed to the men.

[Hank Trent]

Re: Soap on campaign

It might be a small point but I couldn't find that sodium hydroxide was used in soap making until the 1870s. This type of alkali makes hard soap without cooking and is called the cold process. For the most part, modern soaps use this type of alkali. Although it is a small point, it is a major departure from how soap was made before the cold process was developed...

Potassium hydroxide (pot lye - wet, potassa -dry) was used to make soft soap. Sodium carbonate (washing soda) was used to make hard soap.

Good point. Somehow I'd assumed that all "soda soap" in the period was made with sodium hydroxide, not sodium carbonate, but I think you're right; sodium carbonate was used.

Some hard soaps in the period were also produced by adding salt to harden potassium soap.

However... what about soap made with "caustic soda"? Was that another name for sodium hydroxide in the period? Here's a description of how a solution of caustic soda was made, and that sounds like what we'd called sodium hydroxide or a soda-type lye today.

If "caustic soda" referred to sodium hydroxide in the period, then it seems to be fairly common in period soap-making, though it seems it was used in a hot, not cold, process. The 1858 US Dispensatory I quote in an earlier post mentions caustic soda in soapmaking. This British book defines yellow soap as being made of tallow, resin and caustic soda.

Also, for anyone interested in all this, check out this book:

A Treatise of Chemistry Applied to the Manufacture of Soap and Candles, Philadelphia, 1856. Lots of good stuff, but on the current topic, search in there for "caustic soda" or "soda lye" to see some examples.

On the topic of the cold process, it wasn't entirely unknown to make soap without heating:

Domestic and Rural Affairs. Elliot G. Storke, 1859.
How to Make Soap without Boiling. Take one gallon of lye, strong enough to bear up an egg, to every pound of grease. Put the lye into your barrel, and strain the grease hot through a sieve or cullender. Stir this three or four times a day for several days, or until it thickens. By this process you have soap clearer, and with much less trouble, than in the old way.

Kentucky Housewife, 1839
An inferior soft soap may be made by mixing together clean grease and strong lye, exposing it daily to the sun for a week or two, according to the quantity, and stirring it frequently.

The Frugal Housewife, 1832.
Cold soap is less trouble, because it does not need to boil; the sun does the work of fire. The lye must be prepared and tried in the usual way. The grease must be tried out, and strained from the scraps. Two pounds of grease (instead of three) must be used to a pailful; unless the weather is very sultry, the lye should be hot when put to the grease. It should stand in the sun, and be stirred every day. If it does not begin to look like soap in the course of five or six days, add a little hot lye to it, if this does not help it, try whether it be grease that it wants. Perhaps you will think cold soap wasteful, because the grease must be strained; but if the scraps are boiled thoroughly in strong lye, the grease will all float upon the surface, and nothing is to be lost.

Virginia Housewife, 1860.
Soft soap is made in the same manner, only omitting the salt. It may also be made by putting the lye 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.

The slowness of the process and the inferior results mentioned, are probably what kept it from becoming a common commercial process until it was improved upon.

Hank Trent
hanktrent@gmail.com

[PogueMahone]

Re: Soap on campaign

Reading this thread makes me feel so ... dirty. Dirty, dirty boy!

[Virginia Mescher]

Re: Soap on campaign

Thanks Hank for the information on sodium hydroxide or caustic soda. I appreciate you adding to my files and keeping me on my toes.

I probably should have made myself clearer on the cold process of soap-making. The recipes you mentioned were for soft soap and I was referring to the cold process of commercially making hard soap.

Maybe someone better in chemistry than I am can explain the difference in period caustic soda and modern sodium hydroxide.

In looking at a number of soap-making books, the types of soda used was mentioned and different soaps were made from different types of sodas. Apparently there were a number of kinds depending upon how the soda was made and what it was made from.

This topic is becoming more detailed and deserves more than just the bits and pieces that people are coming up with. I see more research is needed.

[Hank Trent]

Re: Soap on campaign

This topic is becoming more detailed and deserves more than just the bits and pieces that people are coming up with. I see more research is needed.

I totally agree, both on the process of military procurement and issue, and on period soap itself.

Hank Trent
hanktrent@gmail.com

[Becky Morgan]

Re: Soap on campaign

The type or types of fats used also make a difference, and that wasn't lost on our ancestors. I agree that this deserves a lot of book-larnin', as in really old book-larnin'.
ETA: Archive.org has three or four promising period texts and one from 1867. I haven't read them yet, but they're all along the lines of commercial soapmaking, not household receipts.

For one thing, I have seen numerous post-period reminiscences about watching someone make soap on, or just after, butchering day. Have any of you found such recollections from the prewar period?

For another, said recollections are not usually too specific about which animal's fats were used for what. With lard in common use as a cooking staple, it isn't hard to make the leap to assume tallow was more commonly used in soap...but is there any actual evidence that this was the case?

Also, one of the articles Vicki Betts transcribed complains about the lack of candles in coastal South Carolina when one of the local plants would supply wax. Was there any reference to using it for soap?

I'm off to comb through the Intelligencer's online files. Too bad they don't put the ads in with them.

[Virginia Mescher]

Re: Soap on campaign

Also, one of the articles Vicki Betts transcribed complains about the lack of candles in coastal South Carolina when one of the local plants would supply wax. Was there any reference to using it for soap?

I'm off to comb through the Intelligencer's online files. Too bad they don't put the ads in with them.

There a many references to using myrtle or bayberries (myrica cerifera) for wax to make soap and myrtle soap was sold commercially. There were also recipes in period books for making bayberry soap.

As early as 1840 there were articles in newspapers such as The Cultivator giving instructions on how to make myrtle soap.

Recipes also appeared in home cookbooks.
"Bayberry, or Myrtle Soap.

Dissolve two pounds four ounces of white potash in five quarts of water ; mix with it ten pounds of bayberry tallow; boil all over a slow fire till it turns to soap ; add a teacup of cold water ; boil it ten minutes longer ; turn it into tin moulds for a week or ten days to dry, first scenting it with any essential oil that may be preferred. It may be used in three or four weeks, but is better a year old ; is excellent for shaving, for chapped hands, and for eruptions on the face." Improved Housewife by Mrs. A. L. Webster (1855)

Myrtle wax was also mentioned in the commercial candlemaking books as well as in perfumery books.

Myrtle oil was extracted from the wax to make perfumes and finer soaps.

There were a great many advertisements for myrtle soaps, especially myrtle shaving soap. It sold for $9.60 per gross wholesale in 1858. One company, E. Dupuy was known for it's fine Myrtle Shaving Soap and its "lasting lather."

I didn't post all the info I have in my files on bayberry or myrtle soap but if you need more I can do additional posting after I get back in town after the beginning of Aug.