The vast majority of soap recipes recorded during the Victorian period make use of commerically prepared lye sources, these had been available since the turn of the century (Leblanc made his discovery of making sodium carbonate from salt in 1791 and further innovation on the same theme was steady from that point onwards), with mined potash coming into use from about 1860 onwards, and most large soapworks took full advantage of the latest technologial advancements.
Lye made from wood ashes would not therefore have been a regular part of the commercial repertoire, but it is known to still be a common method of producing soap in less urban areas, with examples from American homesteading families being fairly well documented right into living memory.
Although most of my experiments for this project will be using commercially prepared lye, its also good to remind myself just how much work does into making soap from scratch using woodashes as a lye source.
I spent part of this week turning a barrel of ashes into lye and the resulting lye into soft soap. I've written the process up as an article on Downsizer. Making Soap out of Woodash Lye
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