Okay, I did some digging, and I was able to find my notes I took in my Interpretive History Class from high school 10+ years ago. (Our mascot was the Pioneer, and we had this fabulous sort of living history museum class, complete with restored cabins and furnishings, that taught us spinning, and weaving, and.. yup soap making!)  I'm such a packrat, but dangit, I KNEW they would come in handy again one day, and I was right! hahaha!

My instructions were a little sketchy on the how to, so I used the wonderful resource of the internet, and googled the recipe I had to see if anything popped up… and 'lo there was lots of good info. So feel free to google the ingredients and see what else you find!

Our recipe for lye soap:

1 can of 100% lye – 12 oz

6 pounds of animal fat or lard

3 cups of water

1.  Pour your water into an enamel bowl, or something equally non-reactive that can take heat.


2. Add the lye to the water slowly and stir gently until all the crystals are dissolved.  Do not breath the fumes. The water will get very hot during this step, so do not touch the container with your hands without protection.  — VERY IMPORTANT—> For this step you'll want to have on all your protective gear. Goggles, gloves, anything to protect your skin in case of spills or splatters.  Have a bottle of vineager on hand. Lye reacts with water, and is very caustic to your skin.  If you DO get some on you douse the affected area with the vineagar to stop the chemical reaction.


3. Set the lye water aside and allow it to cool down and adjust to the room temperature.


4. Melt the lard/animal fat in a glass or non-reactive bowl over the stove, and allow to cool to 90-95 degrees farenheit (I believe we used an enamel coated stock pot, and our target temperature was between 92 & 93 degrees farenheit.)


5. Stir the melted lard with a wooden spoon, slowly pour the lye water, and keep stirring.


6. Stir some more… and some more… and keep stirring until your soap mixture begins to “trace”.  Tracing is when you can lift the spoon from the mixture and it leaves a little noticable trace like it's begginning to set up.  (Online sources say that the consistency should be sort of like pudding.)  Now here's the thing, sometimes it doesn't trace at all. In fact out of the batches and batches of soap that I made in my class, only 1 of them ever traced, and it wasn't anywhere near the pudding consistency.  Tracing can take as little as 30 minutes or as long as 90 minutes; it's said that this is all based on the purity of your ingredients. Our rule of thumb in the classroom was, that after 90 minutes if it hasn't traced it's not going too.


7. ***Optional*** When it traces, or during the last 5 minutes before you stop stirring, you can add in anything extras like fragrance or oatmeal if you'd like. This is not necessary at all, the soap will turn out just fine without it.


8. So after stirring until it traces or at least 90 minutes if it doesn't, you're ready to pour into your mold(s). We used a wooden mold lined with a large trash bag. I can't find the dimensions, but I think we could get about 24 bars out of one batch.


9. After you pour into the molds, give the soap a few days to set up so it's not soft to the touch. Then you can cut it into bars, and begin turning them daily to ensure even drying on all sides.


10. Cure the soap for at least 4-6 weeks, turning daily. — I think we cured our soap for at least 4 weeks, but always test a bar, and it's not to your liking, then let it sit a few more days, etc.

Side Note: I remember our batches of soap having a lighter layer on top as it cured. I don't think that you have to cut this part of the soap away, but my teacher always did just because it was more visually pleasing for it to be all one shade.  Keep the shavings though; they're good stuff! We'd save ours in a jug, and gradually add water, so we would have hand soap and dish washing soap out at the cabins when we had tour groups and what not. It was great on my hands.