Homemade Liquid Lard and Lye Laundry Soap.

I have been making my liquid laundry soap for almost a year and love it. I wanted a soap made from a sustainable resource and that Baby O's skin could tolerate. She is especially sensitive to the chemicals additives, preservatives and dyes in most soaps. One day while looking at different sites I came across this soap forum HERE. MikeInPdx had posted this recipe and I have been using it ever since. Daughter hasn't had a severe break out since!

This is what Mike had to post :

I keep this soap on hand all the time. It takes a few days to set up but it's really easy to make and works well in soft water. People with hard water will want to have it softened with borax or washing soda before adding soap. 

1 gallon heavy plastic or glass container with wide mouth 

1/2 gallon cold water 

2.25 ounces lye 

1 lb lard, melted 

1/2 cup washing soda 

1/2 cup borax (up this to 1 cup if you can't find the washing soda) 

Fragrance oil or essential oil of your choice (optional) 

Hot water to fill the container 

Add cold water to container. Add lye; stir well (this barely gets warm because lye is so diluted) Add lard, washing soda, borax, fragrance oil. Add hot water to finish filling the container and stir well with a wire whisk. 

Whisk 3 times a day or so until set up. Initially, it will start with a glob of soap on top but will set up more each time you whisk it. After three days or so, you will be left with a nice, powdery liquid that you can use in your laundry. 

Add 1/2 - 1 cup for a top loading machine. Dissolve in hot water before adding to a very cold wash. Otherwise, just add it while the machine is filling. Use less in a front loader; this one WILL suds if you add too much.

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Since I had just rendered lard and was almost out of laundry soap I decided to show you how I make liquid laundry soap.

PLEASE USE GOGGLES AND GLOVES AND FOLLOW SAFETY DIRECTIONS FOR WORKING WITH LYE

 First I took my 5 gallon bucket with lid and sat it in my sink. Filled it with 1/2 gallon cold water and using goggles and gloves and careful not to breathe fumes added lye (in that order) then stirred with stainless steel spoon to dissolve. (Use Adequate Ventilation)

Once Lye is dissolved and water is clear add melted lard. Careful not to splash!

 Add Lard that has been melted in microwave

 Add 1/2 cup borax

 1/2 cup washing soda

 stir well

 Add additional 1/2 gallon hot water and stir again. Then I place my bucket in my large sink by the washing machine and put the lid on. For the next three days several times a day as I walk by it I will take a whisk and stir it by hand. On the first day or two it will just look like water with a thin white soap foam on top. Just be patient and keep stirring. 

After about three days it starts to look like yogurt and it is done. I use about 1/2 a cup per load. 

There ya go a cheap liquid lye based laundry detergent that can be made in less than 30 minutes not counting the curing time.  I make a double batch at a time that usually lasts me about 3 months.For those of you that don't like using animal fats this can also be made with coconut oil. 

I do treat stains and since I have hard water add about  a Tablespoon of extra borax before my detergent. I use a vinegar rinse and if throwing them in the dryer I put a couple drops of my favorite essential oil on a wash cloth and throw in the dryer with my clothes. They come out clean, soft and smelling wonderful. No preservatives, dyes, or petroleum products that I am aware of.  

I am using fat from my own organically pasture raised pigs, humanely raised. In talking to my butcher I actually save him money because if I don't take the fat then he has to pay to have it disposed of. 

I know that most people just grate Fels Naptha and use that . If it works for you that is wonderful. But Baby O's skin just couldn't seem to tolerate it. So I started looking into what was in it......this is what Fels Naptha contains.

Soap (sodium tallowate*, sodium cocoate* (or) sodium palmate kernelate*, and sodium palmate*), water, talc, cocnut acid*, palm acid*, tallow acid*, PEG-6 methyl ether, glycerin, sorbitol, sodium chloride, pentasodium pentetate and/or tetrasodium etidronate, titatium dioxide, fragrance, Acid Orange (CI 20170), Acid yellow 73 (ci43350)*contains one or more of these ingredients

The fatty acids are a mixture of tallow (probably cow) coconut, and palm oils. fragrances and dyes and this :

potassium penetate An inorganic salt used as a water softener, emulsifier and dispersing ingredient in cosmetic cleansing creams, lotions and soaps. Can be an eye irritant

titanium dioxide Studies have also found that titanium dioxide nanoparticles cause genetic damage in mice.

tetrasodium etidronateSynthetic preservative that  can be irritating to the eyes/mucous membranes.

Hmmmmmmm  Any of these could be the culprit !

Baby O has a skin disease called Keratosis Pilaris. It is a plugging of the hair follicles. This is what it looks like and can appear all over her body. This disease may slowly be outgrown in some patients.

Her dermatologist recommended White Dove or Lever 2000 purchased soaps that she can use. The basis of both of these soaps are a mixture of coconut oil and animal fats(most probably cow tallow). She has been using White Dove and her skin tolerates it reasonably well.

However this is what a bar of Dove Soap contains:

A Dove Bar contains sodium cocoyl isethionate, stearic acid, coconut acid, sodium tallowate, water, sodium isethionate, sodium stearate, cocamidopropyl betaine, sodium cocoate or palm cocoate., fragrance, sodium chloride, tetrasodium EDTA, trisodium etidronate, BHT, titanium dioxide and sodium dodecyl benzene sulfonate.

That's a mix of coconut extracts, stabilizers, scents/coloring, andseveral ingredients made of or by processing animal fat:

• stearic acid (usually derived from animal fat unless otherwise stated on packaging),
• sodium tallowate (treated animal fat),
• sodium stearate (also usually derived fom animal fat unless stated otherwise).  

But it also contains 

sodium dodecyl benzene sulfonate (a colorless salt with useful preperties as

a surfactant. It is usually produced as a mixture of related sulfonates. It is a major component of laundry detergent. The salt has LD 50 of 2.3 mg/liter for fish. about 4X more toxic than the branched tetrapropylenebenzenesulfate. It is however biodregraded more rapidly. Oxidative degradation initiates at the alkyl chain. (Wikipedia)

Tetrasodium EDTA..EDTA is in such widespread use that it has emerged as a persistent organic pollutant, It degrades to ethylenediaminetriacetic acid, which then cycizes to the diketopiperizide, a cumulative, persistent, organic, enviromental pollutant. An alternative chelating agent with fewer enviromental pollution implications is EDDS.  

EDTA exhibits low acute toxicity with LD50(rat.) of 2.0-2.2g/kg. It has been noted to cause reproductive and developmental effect. The same study by Lanigan also found that both dermal exposure to EDTA in most cosmetic formulations and inhalation exposure to EDTA in aerosolized cosmatic formulations would produce exposure levels below those seen to be toxic in oral dosing studies. (Wikipedia) 

My research stopped there as I think that alone was enough to maybe understand and  justify her skins reactions to these chemicals.  Now that I have found an animal based laundry soap that she can tolerate my goal this winter is to experiment with making herbal soaps that she can use to get completely away from purchased soaps.  I want to experiment with a coconut and lard based soap maybe with oatmeal and some healing herbs. Any soapers out there with recommendations please feel free to help. I have lots of Lard in the freezer.   

By the way Thanks MikeInPdx !

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