Sanitation- Soap
During any type of disaster one of the biggest challenges is cleanliness. Disease and sickness are spread because of lack of ability to wash hands and dispose of garbage and waste.
It is so important to keep our hands clean, have the ability to wash clothing and keep our area of living clean from refuse, waste and garbage.
Soap is a great item to add to your storage. It is a great morale booster and is one of the top 10 things on barter lists. It is also one of the top 10 things to disappear in a disaster.
There are soaps for different purposes:
Hand Soap
Shampoo
Dish Soap
Laundry Soap
Cleaners for your house
Hand Soap:
When you purchase hand soap, make sure you buy the antibacterial soap.
Your supplies need to include one bar of soap per person per month.
Before you use your bars of soap, let them dry out to last longer.
When you get down to slivers of soap left. Put them in a nylon sock, tie the end shut and you will have the best hand, foot, and elbow scrubber!
Dish Soap
You need the basics to keep your dishes clean, such as dish soap, dish cloths, dish towels, a drainer, SOS pads, and scrubbers.
You need enough dish cloths to trade them everyday. Dish clothes and sponges harbor all kinds of things that will make you sick. I read a report that said many people who think they have the flu often, in reality are having small cases of food poisoning from the dish clothes they do their dishes with. They leave them out and use them for several days. What would happen if you left bits and pieces of food out and they were dampish then you ate them after several days? Wash your cloths at the end of each day!
If you do not have hot water, you will need some type of pot that can heat water over a fire. No, not your kitchen pots unless they are specifically designed for fire. Direct fire heating is much hotter than your stove. Cast iron works the best over a fire.
If you can’t use your sink you will need two dish pans, one for rinsing and one for washing. Three works even better so you can have a bleach final rinse.
Remember, if you are now using a dishwasher you will need quite a bit more than you are used to using.
Wash your dishes for one day, all of them. Make note of how much dish soap you use and times that by 30. The general rule is you need one small bottle of dish soap per month per person. If you are cooking with a fire, you will use more dish soap than you do now cooking with your stove. (Remember, do not use soap on cast iron or you will lose your cure. Salt works great instead)
Laundry Soap
We wash our clothes a lot. In a crisis they could be washed less often. You will need supplies to wash your clothing by hand if we didn’t have electricity. Generations past used rocks, then washboards. You will need a big tub to wash in and something else to rinse in. The fine things such as underwear are the easiest to wash. Using a plunger works much like a washing machine does....you would need to enlist several people to do this, because it takes a lot of muscles!
Soap–get antibacterial
Washboard
Plunger
Baking Soda
Clorox
If you have a baby you will need some type of diaper pail once your disposables run out.
Cleaners for your house
Look at the items you use to clean your home with. Every month add a few of these to your storage. Look to see what cleaners can do several jobs so you don’t have to store as many supplies. You will also need rags, buckets etc.
Another thing to have a back up of is a good broom. If you can’t vacuum your home, you would have to sweep your carpets.
Keeping clean with limited water in a crisis
Heat water in a large kettle on cook stove
Take out what water is needed for dishes and to keep counters clean for the day
Reserve one cup of water for brushing teeth
Reserve another quart for each person to wash their hands through the day.
Water that is used for rinse water for the dishes can be used to bath children and wash faces. Any extra used to flush potties.
Water that has been used to wash dishes can be used to mop floors or saved to flush the toilet if you are able to use it.
You can also purify it as listed in the water section to water plants and gardens.
Before mopping the floor add some spic and span to cut the grease
Add a dash of Clorox to bucket before flushing the toilet.
Here is a great article about making basic soap should you run out of your supply. You can do searches on the internet and find a lot of soap and cleaner recipes. If you do that, make sure the recipes you find have basic ingredients that you would have in your storage.
How To Make Soap (I found a lady, or rather she found me at the preparedness fair who will come next spring and teach us how to make soap if we are interested. I thought it sounded like fun.)
The intention here is to provide the basic data on how to make soap from the most basic materials. There are many fancier soap recipes which make better soaps, as long as you have all the ingredients.
The first write-up assumes you can just go to a store and buy the ingredients. The second only assumes you have some animals you will be butchering and that you have been burning wood fires and cleverly saved the ashes.
Basic Method
[A. This first write-up is taken from Hulda ClarkÃÃÃÃs book, "The Cure for All Diseases," pages 529-530.]
A small plastic dishpan, about 10" x 12" A glass or enamel 2-quart saucepan 1 can of lye (sodium hydroxide), 12 ounces 3 pounds of lard, Plastic gloves [really; use eye-protection too] Water
1. Pour 3 cups of very cold water (refrigerate water overnight first) into the 2-quart saucepan. 2. Slowly and carefully add the lye, a little bit at a time, stirring it with the wooden or plastic utensil. (Use plastic gloves for this; test them for holes first.) Do not breathe the vapor or lean over the container or have children nearby. Above all use no metal. The mixture will get very hot. In olden days, a sassafras branch was used to stir, imparting a fragrance and insect deterrent for mosquitoes, lice, fleas and ticks. 3. Let cool at least one hour in a safe place. Meanwhile, the unwrapped lard should be warming up to room temperature in the plastic dishpan. 4. Slowly and carefully, pour the lye solution into the dishpan with the lard. The lard will melt. Mix thoroughly, at least 15 minutes, until it looks like thick pudding. 5. Let it set until the next morning, then cut it into bars. It will get harder after a few days. Then package.
If you wish to make soap based on olive oil, use about 48 ounces. It may need to harden for a week.
Liquid soap
Make chips from your home-made soap cake. Add enough hot water to dissolve. Add citric acid to balance the pH (7 to 8). If you do not, this soap may be too harsh for your skin.
Basic Method When There Are No Stores!
[This write-up was taken from one done by Marietta Ellis concerning the soap-making practices of colonial America, with the tense mainly changed from the past into the present.]
Saponification is a very big chemical word for the rather complex but easy to create soap making reaction. Saponification is what happens when a fatty acid meets an alkali. When fats or oils, which contain fatty acids, are mixed with a strong alkali, the alkali first splits the fats or oils into their two major parts fatty acids and glycerin. After this splitting of the fats or oils, the sodium or potassium part of the alkali joins with the fatty acid part of the fat or oils. This combination is then the potassium or sodium salt of the fatty acid. As we said at the start, this is soap.
Soap Making Takes Three Basic Steps
1. Making of the wood ash lye. 2. Rendering or cleaning the fats. 3. Mixing the fats and lye solution together and boiling the mixture to make the soap.
First Let's Make the Lye
In making soap the first ingredient required is a liquid solution of potash commonly called lye.
The lye solution was obtained by placing wood ashes in a bottomless barrel set on a stone slab with a groove and a lip carved in it. The stone in turn rested on a pile of rocks. To prevent the ashes from getting in the solution a layer of straw and small sticks was placed in the barrel then the ashes were put on top. The lye was produced by slowly pouring water over the ashes until a brownish liquid oozed out the bottom of the barrel. This solution of potash lye was collected by allowing it to flow into the groove around the stone slab and drip down into a clay vessel at the lip of the groove.
Some colonists used an ash hopper for the making of lye instead of the barrel method. The ash hopper was kept in a shed to protect the ashes from being leached unintentionally by a rain fall. Ashes were added periodically and water was poured over at intervals to insure a continuous supply of lye. The lye dripped into a collecting vessel located beneath the hopper.
Now the Fats Are Prepared
The preparation of the fats or grease to be used in forming the soap is the next step. This consists of cleaning the fats and grease of all other impurities contained in them.
The cleaning of fats is called rendering and is the smelliest part of the soap making operation. Animal fat, when removed from the animals during butchering, must be rendered before soap of any satisfactory quality can be made from it. This rendering removes all meat tissues that still remain in the fat sections. Fat obtained from cattle is called tallow while fat obtained from pigs is called lard.
If soap is being made from grease saved from cooking fires, it is also rendered to remove all impurities that have collected in it. The waste cooking grease being saved over a period of time without the benefits of refrigeration usually become rancid, so this cleaning step is very important to make the grease sweeter. It will result in a better smelling soap. The soap made from rancid fats or grease will work just as well as soap made from sweet and clean fats but not be as pleasant to have around and use.
To render, fats and waste cooking grease are placed in a large kettle and an equal amount of water is added. Then the kettle is placed over the open fire outdoors. Soap making is an outside activity. The smell from rendering the fats is too strong to wish in anyone's house. The mixture of fats and water are boiled until all the fats have melted. After a longer period of boiling to insure completion of melting the fats, the fire is stopped and into the kettle is placed another amount of water about equal to the first amount of water. The solution is allowed to cool down and left over night. By the next day the fats have solidified and floated to the top forming a layer of clean fat. All the impurities being not as light as the fat remain in water underneath the fat.
You may have observed this in your own kitchen. When a stew or casserole containing meat has been put in the refrigerator, you could see the next day the same fat layer.
Finally the Soap Making Can Begin
In another large kettle or pot the fat is placed with the amount of lye solution determined to be the correct amount. This is easier said than done. We will discuss it more later. Then this pot is placed over a fire again outdoors and boiled. This mixture is boiled until the soap is formed. This is determined when the mixture boils up into a thick frothy mass, and a small amount placed on the tongue causes no noticeable "bite". This boiling process could take up to six to eight hours depending on the amount of the mixture and the strength of the lye.
Soft and Hard Soap
Soap made with wood ash lye does not make a hard soap but only a soft soap. When the fire is put out and the soap mixture allowed cooling, the next day reveals a brown jelly like substance that feels slippery to the touch, makes foam when mixed with water, and cleans. This is the soft soap the colonists had done all their hard work to produce. The soft soap is then poured into a wooden barrel and ladled out with a wooden dipper when needed.
To make hard soap, common salt is thrown in at the end of the boiling. If this is done a hard cake of soap forms in a layer at the top of the pot. As common salt may be expensive and hard to get, it is not usually wasted to make hard soap. Common salt is more valuable to give to the livestock and the preserving of foods. Soft soap works just as well as hard and for these reasons the colonists, making their own soap, did not make hard soap bars.
Difficulties in Making Soap
The hardest part is in determining if the lye is of the correct strength, as we have said. In order to learn this, the soap maker floats either a potato or an egg in the lye. If the object floats with a specified amount of its surface above the lye solution, the lye is declared fit for soap making. Most of the colonists felt that lye of the correct strength would float a potato or an egg with an area the size of a modern quarter above the surface. To make weak lye stronger, the solution can either be boiled down more or the lye solution can be poured through a new batch of ashes. To make a solution weaker, water is added [more data to be added here on how to determine the correct strength of lye].
A Pennsylvania Dutch recipe once carefully warned that a sassafras stick was the only kind of implement suitable for stirring the mixture [see Hulda Clark comment above re sassafras] and the stirring must be done always in the same direction [?].
Potash and Pearl ash Trade
Soap making and the manufacture of potash and pearl ashes were closely related trades of colonial America. Pearl ash, purified potash, because of its many industrial uses, was an important item of export for the colonies. Pearl ash, in addition to soap making, was used for making glass both in the colonies and in Europe....
Potash is the residue remaining after all the water has been driven off from the lye solution obtained from the leaching of wood ashes. Pearl ash is then made from the potash by baking it in a kiln until all the carbon impurities were burned off. The fine, white powder remaining was the Pearl ash....
End of article-----
There are several things you need to know before you begin your soap making experience.
Lye which you can either make yourself from wood ash, or purchase at a grocery store, is very irritating to the skin and can do severe damage to eyes and throats. Use extreme caution when using lye, always keeping it away from children. You should use rubber gloves and safety glasses when using lye. Follow the directions on the back of the lye box on how to handle lye. Red Devil is a popular brand of lye. You can also make your own lye by pouring water over wood ashes and saving the bi-product--lye water. The lye water is then added to fat to make soap.
Although lard is the main ingredient in soap, one can successfully substitute other oils to use in its place. Possible substitutions for lard can be sunflower, canola, or just vegetable oil. (Soap made from oil is greasier than that made of lard.) Lard can be purchased at a grocery store or a butcher shop. Crisco works!
The utensils you use in soap making should be saved for soap making use only and should not be used thereafter for food purposes. This goes for the kettle you cook the soap in too, although you might use an enamelware canning kettle to can in after using it for soap making as long as there is no direct contact with food items. Give it a good scrubbing, of course. You must not use metal pans and utensils, like aluminum, iron, tin, or Teflon for soap making. You can use cast iron (as in a kettle, if you are making it outside over a fire) or enamelware, stoneware, wood, glass or plastic.
Always add lye to cold water. Not vise-versa. Remember to stir slowly to avoid splashes. The water will start heating up once the lye is added, due to a chemical reaction. Afterwards, pour the lye solution into the fat, once again stirring slowly.
Chunks in your bar soap is caused by the separation of the lye and the lard. The chunks are the fat. If this happens, melt the mixture and add a cup of water at a time, until the mixture is thick and syrupy again.
You can make your own soap molds out of a rag-lined box or glass cake pans or casseroles. Simply slice the bars with a knife after the soap has cured for a week.
You can use kitchen grease, (drippings off meat etc.) you will need to boil it to get rid of any meat residue, the grease will float to the top and you can skim it off.
To make 9 lbs of soap you need 6 lbs of grease
Homemade soap is not as drying as commercial
To make your own lye—Place wood ashes in a cut off Clorox bottle which has small holes punched in the bottom. Place several layers of cloth in bottom, then ashes on top. Pour boiling water over ashes, allowing the water to slowly drip through into suitable container do not use aluminum (lye is very poisonous keep out of reach of children)
Keep vinegar handy in case you get lye on your skin.
How to Make Laundry Soap-----
You will need a big pot. Do not use aluminum,
Wooden stick, a tree branch works
Cheese cloth or sieve (sieve is easer to clean after
Something to pour the soap into, either glass or enamel or you can use little boxes or cartons, or a pan and cut it into chunks. (Shoe boxes work great)
Bar Soap for Laundry
10 cups animal fat (clarified and strained)
1 lb lye
1 cup bleach
1 qt of rain water
Warm the fat to consistency of warm honey. If fat is too hot it will curdle the soap. Add cool water into another pot. Add lye and stir hard until it is dissolved. Don’t stand over the mixture. Add bleach and continue to stir until mixture is cool. (Lye heats the water) Pour fat into lye mixture very slowly. Stir constantly for 25 minutes until thick and creamy. Pour into molds and allow to stand several days before set. Cut into bars and wrap in brown paper sacks.
Granulated Soap for Laundry
2 ½ quarts cleaned grease
2 ½ qts. water
1 can lye
½ cup borax
1 cup bleach
½ cup ammonia
Warm the fat to consistency of warm honey to be poured into lye mixture. Put water into container and stir till dissolved. Add borax and stir until dissolved. Add grease slowly. Add bleach slowly and continue stirring until mixed. Stir very 30 minutes through the day. Next morning break up as much as you can or grate with a cheese grater.
House Cleaners
Wall or Floor Cleaner
1 gallon water
1 cup ammonia
1/4 cup vinegar
1/4 cup soda.
(Leave out soda if your walls are shiny.)
Window Cleaner
1 pint rubbing alcohol
1 ½ tbls ammonia
1 tsp dish detergent
Wallpaper Cleaner
1 cup flour
1 T. salt
1 tsp. kerosene
2 tsp. ammonia
2 tsp. vinegar
1/2 cup warm water
Mix and boil for 2 or 3 minutes, stirring constantly. Cool, knead and form into balls. Rub over paper, discarding the balls as they become soiled.
Floor Cleaner
1/2 c. white vinegar
1 c. warm water
Mix and use on vinyl floors.
Drain Opener
1/2 c. baking soda
1/2 c. vinegar
Pour baking soda and then vinegar down the drain. Seal for 10-15 minutes then rinse with boiling water. Repeat if necessary.
Glass Cleaner
1/4 c. white vinegar
1 quart water
Pour into a spray bottle and spray on windows. Wipe dry with a crumpled newspaper.
Dishwasher Detergent
Sprinkle dirty dishes with baking soda and start machine. During the wash cycle, add a small amount of bleach to sanitize your dishes.
Scouring Powder for Sinks
Use Baking soda to scrub grime. Vinegar will loosen lime deposits, and a bit of bleach will disinfect
Challenge -
Buy a package of soap for your storage!
Used with permission from Marcia Lind of the Maple Valley Stake, WA
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