About Lye For information
on Potassium Hydroxide or Potash - CLICK
HERE
People have been using lye as a detergent or soap for
thousands of years!
Up until the 18th Century, the old-fashioned ingredients for
making soap were: wood ashes, water, animal fat and salt. This
was used all around the globe.
Below are links to Vintage Pamphlets (PDF) showing the
many uses, historically, of Lye. The uses of Lye in these vintage
pamphlets is for historical review only and may not be safe to be used in
the manner indicated in the vintage pamphlet. Lye is a dangerous chemical;
and as such, you should be very careful when using Lye.
Note: Download of the pdf files below
can take a few minutes depending on your internet connection speed. Once
downloaded, you can then view them online or print the
pamphlets.
Lye, also known as caustic soda, is the common name
for Sodium Hydroxide (NaOH). Lye is commercially used, most
commonly, in the manufacture of paper, textiles and
detergents.
Some common household products that use lye in the
manufacturing process are soaps, detergents, oven cleaners
and
drain cleaners (* Red Devil Lye being
the most famous). Pure sodium hydroxide is a white solid which is
available in flakes, pellets, beads, granules and also a 50%
saturated solution. It is highly caustic and care should be
taken
with storage and
handling. There used to be a product called "Red
Devil
Lye" available (pure lye) which unclogged drains - this
product was 100% lye but has been pulled off the shelves
because of storage and safety issues! For more chemical
information on lye, check
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lye
Simply described - ashes, soaked and heated in water
is the way to make lye. The lye, then mixed with fat,
through a
process known as
saponification, creates soap.The added salt is what
hardens
the soap.
Lye can be traced back to use in soap as far back as
the Babylonians in 2800 B.C.
The Ruins of Pompeii revealed a soap factory together
with finished bars of soap. This soap was not used for personal
cleansing,,, it was used mainly for cleaning textiles such as wool
and cotton in preparation for weaving into cloth.
By the middle ages soap was being used for personal
cleansing throughout Europe as well as textile and household
cleaning.
The American Colonists brought soap with them when
they settled and then, after a while, at butchering times, began to
make it for themselves.
Nowadays the electrolytic process is used for making
lye. An electric current is passed through a sodium chloride
solution which splits the salt molecules into atoms of sodium and
chlorine. The sodium atom displaces one of the hydrogen atoms
of the water hence forming sodium hydroxide, aka lye, aka caustic
soda.
* Note: by 1998 it was
estimated that the world
production of sodium hydroxide was around 45 million tonnes! A
MUCH demanded product Red Devil Lye was
withdrawn from the market because of the health risks!
If you wish to purchase lye for homemade lye soap please
click here. |
