
How to Make Medieval Soap - diodorus
http://www.medievalists.net/2019/09/how-to-make-medieval-soap/
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kaikai
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.

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deepspace
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.

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canada_dry
This video of a centuries old soap making factory in Palestine always
fascinated me:

[https://youtu.be/aWmFMDr7y0U](https://youtu.be/aWmFMDr7y0U)

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ineedasername
That has got to be (some of) the most tedious, mind numbing work I've come
across.

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whamlastxmas
Clearly you've never had to attend meetings in most of corporate America

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rexgallorum2
I sometimes buy Aleppo soap. It's great stuff made according to an ancient
olive/laurel oil recipe.

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dmreedy
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.

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rexgallorum2
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.

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amonavis
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.

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rexgallorum2
Nice price! I wonder what shipping from Lebanon to Europe costs...

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amonavis
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.

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chefe
"Tonight? We make soap." Tyler, D. 1999

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ndespres
I make soap and as far as the occupational hazards go, I rank the chemical
burns further down the scale from the endless Fight Club references.

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nickserv
Good stuff right there, as it requires no industrial products.

Will come in handy during the coming climate apocalypse.

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_nalply
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?

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kwakuDompreh
That’s intriguing but will be awesome to give it a tryout! Medieval have the
quality in many things they do.

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pskiba
I wonder how effective this soap is when used as a cleaning agent compared to
commercial options.

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llarsson
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.

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elhudy
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.

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WrtCdEvrydy
Anyone else read this as 'soup'? Just me?

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johnisgood
I mean, after eating tide pods[1], might as well... :D

[1]
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Consumption_of_Tide_Pods](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Consumption_of_Tide_Pods)

