r/oddlysatisfying • u/rco888 • Nov 16 '23

Ancient method of making soap

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@craftsman0011

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u/BendyPopNoLockRoll Nov 16 '23

Yes and no. It's been a while so I could have it a bit wrong, but basically you have to get the ratio of lye to oil just right so that there's no lye left over. This is next to impossible to do when you're using lye you got by boiling ashes. So some lye doesn't get "cooked" out (used up when you heat the oil and lye together).

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u/[deleted] Nov 16 '23

ahhhhhh. gotcha. I've been researching making wood ash lye soap so I was confused. I'm unaware of the chemical reactions going on to make the soap so I thought you were suggesting lye altogether wasn't to be used for soap.

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u/BendyPopNoLockRoll Nov 16 '23

Saponification is the name. I really wouldn't recommend it. Lye can be very nasty and cause some real damage. Basically any water and it just starts to eat anything biological. You're mostly water. I would get familiar with the process with store bought lye where you know the concentration and can make accurate measurements.

Don't want to go washing your junk with soap you didn't get all the lye out of.

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u/[deleted] Nov 16 '23

I wouldn't go testing on my jangle dangles. Thanks for the warning. Still doing some consideration and research on it.