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So.... how does one keep clean when there is no running water and the water you do have on hand is needed for cooking and most importantly...drinking! Well...that could be a dilemna...but if you have prepared then the next thing to wonder about is SOAP. You won't be able to just run to the corner store either when SHTF to grab some. So the solution is to know how to make your own soap and to have any that you might already have on hand... to be multipurpose! You'll have to be able to use it on your hair, body, clothing etc...... P.S...don't forget...that even those little slivers of soap bars that most of us just chuck in the garbage cuz they are too small to use.... if you save them in a  sealable jar or bucket with a lid... you can always add some water to them when the time comes. It takes a few days for them to become soft once again but at least you will have on hand something to wash with.....


This is an excerpt from : http://hardnoxandfriends....   


We all need to wash and keep clean and some folks think there needs to be a soap for every situation – there doesn’t! I’m going to pass on what I do and you folks take it from there, ok


As an all-around soap, I use Ajax Brand Dish Soap. It’s unscented and contains no hand lotions. I use it for my dishes, as well as for washing my hands and general cleaning. It cuts grease and, if you get the “Anti-Bacterial Brand, it helps there as well. I can also use it as a body wash, as a shampoo and for my laundry, if needed.

Since it’s a concentrated soap, I cut mine to approximately 10 parts water to 1 part soap for hand, dish and body use. For heavier cleaning, perhaps floors, tubs, toilets, a 50%/50% solution is better and, for laundry, 75% soap and 25% water.

Let’s remember, it’s NOT the soap that does the cleaning, it’s the “action”. Soap only loosens the dirt/grease, action removes it. The use of the “right” scrub pads also helps. I buy the “Scott Brite” (medium grit (red) automotive type used in refinishing – they’re cheaper and last longer than their household version) for the dishes and general surface cleaning needs.

Anyone concerned with what may come should have a good supply of this on hand. I recommend buying it wherever and whenever you can and stocking up. This is a tradable commodity and will last for damned near ever.

Powdered soaps are also good to have BUT you’ll have to liquify them and they NOT good for dishes OR your body. In a “pinch, maybe, but they leave a residue and tend to be “greasy”. Soap, after all, is actually a combination of lye and grease/oil so you may want to look up how to make it in the future.

Learn how to make your own HERE. There are many more videos available so keep looking until you have it down to a science and don’t forget to take notes. YouTube won’t work once the SHTF.

~ my comment~ I would buy anything that has anti-bacterial properties to it. Soap on it's own is already anti Bacterial and we don't need the added chemicals. ~

Some of the other comments and ideas posted on the above site....

Re: washing clothes and linens … You can grate soap bars to use for laundry. I used to do all of my laundry with grated soap mixed with baking soda, washing soda, and borax. I’d use an unscented homemade soap bar for this, but you can use any kind. One bar soap, grated, plus 2 cups washing soda, 2 cups baking soda, and 2 cups borax. Use 1/2 cup of the resulting mixture per load for a top-loading washer.... ( or in large tub if no electricity to use your washer!) 

More re: soap … I should have also remembered that you can render fat from beef or pork (or probably any meat) to make soap. When possible, you’ll still want to use another type of oil (or more), but in a pinch, you could make a soap with just lard or tallow. Here’s an example (with olive oil added): http://survivingthemodern...

One more thing … If you buy soap to keep in storage, I’d definitely avoid the anti-bacterial soaps if they contain additives like triclosan.

Another trick is removing the bars from their boxes and drying them in the open air. This hardens the bars and they last much longer.


Re: soap … I make soap, although I use a different method from the video (that is hot-process, I do cold-process). Soap made with only veg oil (I’m assuming it’s soy) is soap but not a particularly cleansing one – more of a conditioning soap. You’re better off mixing half and half with coconut oil and maybe even using olive oil. BUT any change in oils will also change the amount of lye you need. It’s possible to calculate it, but even better, figure out a simple recipe using oils you store regularly and use soapcalc.net to figure out lye amounts. You can use 8 oz soybean oil (or Crisco that has palm oil), 4 oz. olive oil, 4 oz. coconut oil with 2.3 oz lye (or 8 oz soybean and 8 oz coconut oil with 2.4 oz lye) for a more balanced soap. I know “balance” doesn’t matter a bunch in a SHTF scenario, but if we’re at that point, you’re going to want a soap that cleans more than conditioning anyway. If you want to get fancy, you can learn about which oils make soap bubbly, which make a harder bar, etc, but if you’re only wanting a simple soap, stick with 2-3 oils.


And regarding lye, you have to make sure it’s 100% lye and not a drain cleaner with other things mixed in!


Oops, I’m wrong … I should have watched the video more carefully. That is also cold process soap – I just warm the oils enough to soften any hard oils, and I mix the oil and lye in a bowl (using a stick blender, although without electricity, I’d probably use a whisk).


If you don’t want the soap to have to cure for 4+ weeks, you can search for info on making hot process soap. The advantage is speed, disadvantage is that the part where you’re actively involved is longer.


One thing that the guy says wrong … He says it takes that curing time for the lye to turn the oils into soap. That chemical process is actually done within a day or so (as long as you insulate the soap while it’s in the mold so it goes through a gel phase, which speeds up the chemical process of turning lye+oil into soap), but you cut into bars and let them sit to get more water out, which makes harder and longer-lasting bars.


Here's also another recipe for making your own soap : http://www.humblebeeandme...


Excerpt~ The primary difference between liquid soap and bar soap is the type of lye you use to convert the oils into soap. Bar soap uses sodium hydroxide. Liquid soap uses potassium hydroxide. After that, everything seems to change—or so I thought, from my reading. But then I met Colleen, and we had a DIY date. She has more soaping experience, and I seem to be more cosmetics inclined. She’d made lots of liquid soap, and promised to walk me through it after I confessed I’d never tried it thanks to how crazy complicated it sounded. She promised me my sources were over-complicating things, and she was right. And, best of all, we managed to simplify things even more.


Basic Liquid Soap


50% olive oil
30% coconut oil
15% shea butter
5% castor oil


5% superfat (or lye discount)


Use SoapCalc to get your final measurements of KOH and H2O, based on your batch size (I’d recommend not going smaller than 500g of oils as that starts to get tricky to blend, especially if your pot is quite large).


Melt the oils together in a large (non-aluminum) heavy bottomed pot over medium heat.


Weigh out the water into a large, dishwasher safe jug.


Weigh out the KOH carefully into a small container and add it to the water, swirling it gently to dissolve the flakes. It will bubble and steam—avoid inhaling the emissions.


Once the oils have melted, turn the heat down to low (2/10 or so) and add the lye water.


Get out your immersion blender and start blending to reach trace—this will take quite some time. After 20–30 minutes of stirring and blending, you will eventually end up with something the texture of pudding or applesauce. At this point, switch out the emulsion blender for a flexible spatula—we have achieved trace and are now cooking the paste.


Stir as the mixture continues to cook. There are a lot of cooking stages that you can apparently witness, but all I saw using this hot processed method was runny mashed potatoes to thick mashed potatoes to translucent vaseline like paste. Once you reach the translucent paste stage you’re done—do a zap test to confirm (aka touch a small amount of the past [let it cool first!] to your tongue—it shouldn’t “zap”).


You’ll want to store most of the paste to dilute as needed—mason jars are great for that.


To dilute, start with a 1:0.6 ratio of paste to water by weight (eg. 100g soap paste, 60g water—you’ll always want to be using more soap paste than water unless you like your liquid soap very firmly on the liquid side of things). I used tap water. Place the paste and water (just-boiled is best) together in a leftovers container with a sealing lid. Mash it a wee bit (use a fork rather than a spatula to avoid splurting), and then seal it and leave it. Overnight is a good starting point. The next morning, mash it about a bit and try to break up the blobs of soap paste. Re-heat the mixture a bit, re-seal, and let it sit some more. Continue this until you have a homogenous mixture. Yes, it takes a while, but at least it’s almost entirely downtime.


Now you can add your essential oils—a major bonus of liquid soap is that you’ll need far less essential oil to get the scent you want because they don’t have to live through saponification or aging. Score!


Transfer to a pump-top container and voila, soap!


If you like your soap thicker than it ended up being, you can sprinkle in a bit of guar gum or xantham gum to thicken it up to your preference, and then adjust your water amounts next time. Whoops. You can also just add some more soap paste and let that dissolve, but I find that second soap paste addition takes quite a lot longer to dissolve than the first one—days instead of hours.


And another one! http://www.humblebeeandme...


 


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Topics: SHTF Series, Soap, home made soap, How to
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