Quote:
Originally Posted by brighteyed  Soap without Lye:
"Ingredients: Soapwort, oatmeal and fragrance of choice (vanilla extract, lemon juice, orange peel, etc-whatever you want the soap to smell like) Recipe: cook the soapwort in water to extract the saponins. Boiling is not desirable, as saponins can be destroyed by excessive heat. When they come out, they should float on the water and they should be sudsy, so you'll recognize it. Harvest the saponins, by scooping the suds out with a dipper or large spoon and place the suds into a container by themselves. You should eventually be able to tell how much you need. Trial and error will show the way. Next, mix your flavoring/scent into the saponin/suds container. Then add your oatmeal. Add water if the mix is too dry immediately. You could also use cornstarch or flour for this instead of oatmeal. Finally, take the entire mixture and place it into molds, the size and shape you want your soap to be. you can leave these in the sun to dry or bake them overnight at low heat or, just set them in a warm, dry place, where children and pests can't get to them. When these items are dry, you have soap. Some people on here have said that "real" soap requires lye, but the only definition of soap is that it is a substance used for cleaning. Saponins might form the scientific definition, but lye is not a saponin, so it has no real value in soap and being caustic, it is probably best avoided. (10/25/2007)"
HTH
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That really is absolutely absurd information. Especially the bolded part -- although the directions are crap too. BUT, I can totally see how if you're not a person who knows a lot about making soap it could seem like it's reasonable and do-able and useful information.
Saponins are not the same as soap. Saponins are actually chemicals which plants create because they taste icky to animals so that the plant doesn't get eaten. Saponins only act like soap when they're bonded with water, which is why the above recipe is a big load of horse excrement -- you can't "dry" saponins into a bar form, because they're not soapy unless they're bonded to water and they don't re-bond once the water evaporates. You can scrub your self/dishes/clothes with a root, but that's about as far as it goes without the intervention of lye.
As far as soap, there IS a technical, chemical definition of soap. And moreover, I don't think anyone would actually agree that soap is just "a substance that is used for cleaning", because that definition would include things like bleach and ammonia. Those aren't soap. And more importantly, there isn't any lye IN properly made soap. Soap is what happens when you let lye react with oil to make a totally different third thing -- your soap. But without lye (or potassium hydroxide, which is about the same thing) you can't get soap because there is nothing for your oil to react with. It's absolutely necessary; you can't do without it!
Honestly, I think we make Lye out to be scarier than it has to be. I know that I was terrified of it for a year before I finally sucked it up and tried making soap for the first time. But honestly, while it's one of those things that needs to be treated with respect - just like a lot of household chemicals - it shouldn't be scary.
I make almost all our cleaning products. I started out with a fairly simple bar soap recipe using oils from the grocery store (A bit of olive, canola, and some coconut from the ethnic market), and then branched out into slightly fancier oils, mostly still from the ethnic foods store.
Bar soap can be grated and mixed with borax for a very effective powdered laundry detergent and can be grated, mixed with water and gently heated for use with dishes. I'd love to get to the point of making my own liquid shampoo but so far I fail at liquid soap making so I make shampoo bars instead.
As is probably obvious from the fact that I just wrote an entire freakin' novel here, I LOVE soapmaking, and as far as I am concerned the only downside is that we don't go through soap all that fast so I don't get to do it often enough.
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