Making soap the old fashioned way!?

Question

Please help, want to make soap from lye water made from ashes, but cannot get the concentration right, getting contradicting information. Anyone experienced with this art. Need to teach some students who live in remote parts of Africa! Please note, there's no caustic soda available. Just firewood for the ashes and animal fat to make the soap.

Answer 1

Have you read this? It is quite detailed, and seems to be geared to areas where commercial products are not available.

http://ourworld.compuserve.com/homepages/paul_norman_3/soapmake.htm

"If an egg or potato will float just below half way, or a chicken feather starts to dissolve in it, then the lye water is at the right strength.

If the egg will not float, then the lye water could be boiled down if you wanted it to be stronger.

If the egg seems to pop up too far, add a little bit of soft water (a cup at a time) stirring the lye water, until the egg floats so that its head pops up."

Answer 2

I can't answer question directly as I've never made soap this way. But i ran across a website that talks about it in some depth.

check it out:
http://www.alcasoft.com/soapfact/history.html

I also ran across an article one time that mentioned a book that was produced to teach soap making in remote parts of the world. I can't seem to remember where it was. You might do a google search on soap making and see what you come up with.

Hope this helps