A Few Radom Comments
It is far better to grate soap and disslove in hot or boiling water before adding to the wash tub. In the "old days" before soap powders came along a housewive or launderess would have either shaved bits/grated or whatever means to get bits of soap into a pan of hot water and allow to sit overnight before wash day. Ready made soap chips/flakes (Chipso, Ivory Flakes, etc...) made the job eaiser in that they dissloved eaisly in hot water and thus were well suited to the new mechanical washing machines. One dosed the soap into the machine filled with hot water, allowed it to run for awhile to disslove the soap, then got on with wash day. Commercial laundries would use "soap cookers" to boil down soap and water into a liquid or jelly.
The other method was to create various liquid or gel soap by the batch full using various formulas that gave ratios of soap, water, builders (borax, soda ash, washing soda, etc..)which would be prepared in amounts enough for a period of time's washing. Obviously a commerical laundry or laundress who did lots of wash made amounts to get themselves through say a week's worth of laundry. Housewives would need less but unless preservatives were added you wanted to only have on hand what could be used before it started to go off.
Every good commercial laundry had a "soap man" with the experience and or knowledge to make up the soaps needed for that particular plant's type of work, quality of water and so forth. As time went on and products like Chipso (P&G's number one selling laundry soap for decades, only surpassed in sales by Tide detergent which after being introduced literally sent sales of all laundry soaps including Chipso dropping off a cliff), meant again housewives and or laundries didn't have to "cook up" soap from bars.
According to one laundry manual (circa 1930's) the porportion of soap to soda varies between one-half to two times the amount of soap depending upon water hardness. They offer the following formula:
5lbs of soap
5 lbs of soda
25 gallons of water
Amounts of the above varied by the capacity of the soap cooker/pot the mixture was being done up in; basically you wanted a ratio of one part soap, one part soda and five parts water.
The soda recommended was "neutral or modified" soda which one believes is different from what we purchase today by the likes of Arm & Hammer washing soda.
Personally one would and does ditch the soda and uses phosphates, but there again you have to test to create a formula that deals with the hardness of local water.
It is far better to grate soap and disslove in hot or boiling water before adding to the wash tub. In the "old days" before soap powders came along a housewive or launderess would have either shaved bits/grated or whatever means to get bits of soap into a pan of hot water and allow to sit overnight before wash day. Ready made soap chips/flakes (Chipso, Ivory Flakes, etc...) made the job eaiser in that they dissloved eaisly in hot water and thus were well suited to the new mechanical washing machines. One dosed the soap into the machine filled with hot water, allowed it to run for awhile to disslove the soap, then got on with wash day. Commercial laundries would use "soap cookers" to boil down soap and water into a liquid or jelly.
The other method was to create various liquid or gel soap by the batch full using various formulas that gave ratios of soap, water, builders (borax, soda ash, washing soda, etc..)which would be prepared in amounts enough for a period of time's washing. Obviously a commerical laundry or laundress who did lots of wash made amounts to get themselves through say a week's worth of laundry. Housewives would need less but unless preservatives were added you wanted to only have on hand what could be used before it started to go off.
Every good commercial laundry had a "soap man" with the experience and or knowledge to make up the soaps needed for that particular plant's type of work, quality of water and so forth. As time went on and products like Chipso (P&G's number one selling laundry soap for decades, only surpassed in sales by Tide detergent which after being introduced literally sent sales of all laundry soaps including Chipso dropping off a cliff), meant again housewives and or laundries didn't have to "cook up" soap from bars.
According to one laundry manual (circa 1930's) the porportion of soap to soda varies between one-half to two times the amount of soap depending upon water hardness. They offer the following formula:
5lbs of soap
5 lbs of soda
25 gallons of water
Amounts of the above varied by the capacity of the soap cooker/pot the mixture was being done up in; basically you wanted a ratio of one part soap, one part soda and five parts water.
The soda recommended was "neutral or modified" soda which one believes is different from what we purchase today by the likes of Arm & Hammer washing soda.
Personally one would and does ditch the soda and uses phosphates, but there again you have to test to create a formula that deals with the hardness of local water.
