Personal hygiene is an important part of everyday life. For bathing, soap is most often used. Its great variety allows you to choose the most suitable. Ash soap is an equally effective personal care product. You can cook it yourself. How to make soap from ash is described in the article.
What is required?
Do it yourself soap from ash is simple. It is only necessary to prepare for this everything necessary:
- Ash. It is obtained after burning wood. If it is resinous, for example from spruce or pine, then ash, pre-mixed with fat, is required to neutralize the resin. Replace this component will allow caustic soda, which is called a soapstone.
- Water. It may be ordinary, but it is better to choose a soft one. Stiff enters into chemical reactions with alkali and partially neutralizes it.
- Fat. It can be fatty waste, lard, subcutaneous fat and various animal waste.
- Salt. You should choose a cookbook.
Based on these components, soap is made from ash. It is used for daily bathing and washing. It perfectly performs its hygienic functions.
Cooking rules
The ash soap recipe is very simple. To do this, in two containers: large and slightly smaller - pour a little water. Do not use aluminum cookware. Ash should be added to the water and boiled for 30 minutes. During this period, a precipitate will appear - it is not applied. And the resulting liquid will be a light liquor.
The same amount of fat is added to the liquor, after which the mixture should be boiled. Gradually add more lye. It should turn out a substance that can harden during the test - liquid soap and soap glue.
Further actions
You should take this soap glue, freed from greasy residues and sediment, and add sodium chloride to it. As a result of the reaction, a dense soap core appears - sodium soap. The solution must be stirred by adding salt. The core will grow until all the soap glue turns into it.
Then the finished soap from the ash must be removed from the container and transferred to another boiler. To this are added the most concentrated liquor, pre-boiled, and table salt. The soap from the ash becomes thicker - now it can be used for hygiene. But you can do this after removing excess liquor, which is harmful to the skin. Using this technology, for example, soap is made from birch ash.
Final stage
At the end, the obtained substance for shaping is placed in a wooden box on a linen or other cloth. The soap from the ash should freeze, the lye should drain down. The product is cut into pieces and used at its discretion. Store soap should be greased.
It is desirable to carry out all stages of the procedure, except the first, on the street, otherwise an unpleasant smell will appear in the room.
Ready soap perfectly cleanses the skin. It is much better than simple soap, which is usually used to maintain personal hygiene. After completion of the saponification reaction, free alkali does not remain. On the contrary, a good handicraft product always includes free oils and fats.
The nuances of using
Lye is applied:
- For washing hair and personal hygiene. In this case, it is better to take lye made by a simpler method. To do this, water is passed through 1 portion of ash. This liquor has a mild concentration and does not dry out the skin.
- For dish washing. The above recipe will do, but with a stronger concentration. To do this, 1 part of the water is passed through several portions of ash. There will be a strong and thick lye.
- For washing and cleaning. Effective liquor made by the cold method.
Concentrated liquor is used in washing and cleaning, so it is able to dry the skin. In the process of its use, it is advisable to use gloves or other means for protecting hands.
The concentration of liquor depends on the type of plant used. For example, potassium carbonate is present in sunflower - 30-35%, in birch ash - 12%, and in buckwheat straw - 35%.
The resulting soap provides the saturation of epidermal cells with microelements, vitamins and other valuable components. It perfectly cleanses, softens, nourishes the skin. With this soap, the color and condition of the epidermis improves. It also retains moisture well and maintains skin elasticity.
The use of such a soap protects the epidermis from hard water. It gives the skin a soft, velvety, light aroma. Also, the tool eliminates rashes, irritations. It can be used to perform soap massage - for deep cleaning.
Difficulties
When creating soap, there may be some difficulties that can be easily eliminated:
- Often a layer of fat appears on the mixture. It should be checked that the solution has a suitable temperature to thin the fat. If so, the mixture is still heated by adding 5% more water with alkali, and stirred for 10 minutes. If the mixture is cold, then it is warmed up a little.
- It may be that the mixture does not roughen for 3 hours. It should be heated a little more, turn off the heat, add molten fat (10%) and mix for 10 minutes.
- Often the mixture does not harden. It is important to make sure that hardwood ash is used, not coniferous wood.
- Sometimes the resulting soap has a thin layer of white dust on top. Blot it before use.
- The resulting soap may not work effectively for the first time. It must be dipped in water and air dried.
It should be borne in mind that in this recipe you need ash from hard wood, not soft. Then the cooking procedure will please, as well as the result. The resulting soap will be one of the best face care products.
Thus, ash-based soaps can be easily prepared on their own. The resulting product is effective for regular hygiene procedures.