Brown Soap Bar

I remember when I was very young and had a problem going to the bathroom, my Grandmother would slice a wedge from a brown soap bar and stick it up my butt. In less then a half hour I would be in the bathroom having a good dump. Does anyone know what kind of soap that was? I tried Ivory but that did not work.

The only brown bar I can remember is the lye soap my Grandmother used to make.

I can't imagine anyone using it in either an enema or as a soapstick, but it worked well for other things.

Lye, which I think is sodium hydroxide will dissolve you skin if it gets on it. I was washing something with a sodium hydroxide solution and the waterproof glove I was using got a small hole in it. The area of my skin that got the solution on it felt very slimy. I think it started eating my skin. I never used lye soap. Would it do that same thing to your skin if you washed your hands with it? The skin on my hands is much tougher that the mucous membranes in my ass. I can not imagine what a piece of lye soap would do to your asshole.

Please get that soap away from my ass --- Fred

It was probably pine tar soap.

Soap, like Ivory, is made using lye. The finished soap product has no lye. It is part of the chemical reaction involved in making soap.

The classic brown soap of my youth was Fels-Naphtha, and was usually employed for household cleaning, not handwashing. The bar was very long-almost two bar's worth in one.

How bad is it to use pine tar soap for an enema? (not that I want to)

I am not sure if Ivory soap still is made with lye.

One place list the ingredients for Ivory soap as:

Ingredients

Sodium tallowate, sodium cocoate or sodium palm kernelate, water, sodium chloride, sodium silicate, magnesium sulfate, and fragrance.

(It is interesting that magnesium sulfate (Epsom salts) is one of the ingredients.)

Somebody else list the ingredients as:

Ingredients:

Sodium Tallowate and/or Sodium Palmate, Water, Sodium Cocoate and/or Sodium Palm Kernelate, Glycerin, Sodium Chloride, Fragrance (Parfum), Coconut Acid (Contains One of More of These Ingredients), Palm Kernel Acid (Contains One of More of These Ingredients), Tallow Acid (Contains One of More of These Ingredients), Palm Acid (Contains One of More of These Ingredients), Tetrasodium EDTA.

Product Description: Ivory Bar Soap, Simply Ivory 9.5 oz.

https://www.wegmans.com/webapp/wcs/stores/servlet/ProductDisplay?langId=-1&storeId=10052&productId=360775&catalogId=10002&krypto=QJrbAudPd0vzXUGByeatog%3D%3D&ddkey=http😜roductDisplay

This is the Wiki page for sodium tallowate. I am not quite sure if this goes on in all soap making or this is a process if modern chemistry?

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sodium_tallowate

That Wiki page talks about Saponification but it is probable not worth going to look that Wiki page at but there is a link to a "Simplified diagram of the saponification process" which is kind of interesting. You end up with a molecule with one end having an infinity for water and the other end having an infinity for oil. (getting oil and water to mix)

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Soapsap1.gif

After reading the Wiki on soap I am still not sure it sodium tallowate is the same process as lye and animal fat? Here is the wiki on soap:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Soap

I was hoping to know it all by now --- Fred

P.S. Have you ever thought about putting an anionic surfactant in your butt?

Fred-something that is used in the manufacture of a product is NOT an ingredient. An ingredient is something IN what you are using.

Think of it this way: a cow eats grass, but grass is NOT an ingredient of steak.

I recall my grandmother always using something she called

"TAG" soap. I think the wrapper said "Tag's Works Soap". It was brown. It smelled bad and she used it for washing clothes. She never used it in enemas, she was an Ivory user

Jim.

[quote author=Switchablesusie link=topic=16655.msg171150#msg171150 date=1232140460]

Soap, like Ivory, is made using lye. The finished soap product has no lye. It is part of the chemical reaction involved in making soap.

[/quote]

Quoted for truth.

If I'm not mistaken, the soapmaking process actually takes the OH from the NaOH (lye) and turns it into glycerin (along with some parts of the fat). The Na then becomes stuck on the hydrophilic side of the soap.

If the ingredients are used in the proper proportions, the finished product has a fairly friendly pH (i.e., there is no lye left in it, because it all became broken apart and the pieces attached to different things).

♪♫♪♪ "oh let us sing right out for grandmas lye soap, good for everything in the home, the pots and pans, the dirty dishes, it wouldn't suds and couldn't foam.♫♫♪♫

Wasn't there a Fels Naptha soap that came in a brown bar?

I remember mom scrubbing my arms with it when I had been exposed to poison ivy.

I would think a soap that strong would be horrible to use in an enema, or as a homemade suppository.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fels-Naptha

C.

Yikes!!! Soap suppositories again? As bad as washing your mouth out with it. ???

It could have been what my grand mother used to do laundry, Tag's Works Soap. Brown, strong smelling, old time soap.

Lye is not really used in soap any more. It's mostly tallow now days

Naptha is the primary ingredient in mothballs. Can't imagine Fels Naptha soap actually having Naptha in it today.

If you were conscious as I was in high school science class, you probably remember the demonstration/experiment using Naptha. It is essentially an ice at room temperature and liquefies at temps just above room temperature. One reason it's used for moth proofing!!

Ivory does not have anything in it that dangerous!

If you want to use Castille soap I'm not against it, but have a comfort zone with Ivory that I'll stick to!!

Also interesting that sodium chloride((table salt) is there as well as Epsom Salt.

In the US the law requires the ingredients to be listed in the order of quantity. The higher it's listed the more of it there is. at least if the labeling is legal!

Octogon Soap was the brown bar soap of my youth. Supposedly good for everything from laundry to bathing. Also supposed to be a good soap to use after exposure to poison ivy.

Lye is not really used in soap any more. It's mostly tallow now days

What on earth does this mean? Soap is not tallow, and tallow is not soap. And of course lye is used in making soap, you can’t make it any other way. Soap is made by reacting lye (NaOH solution) with vegetable oils and/or tallow, the reaction products being soap, glycerine, and water. Both vegetable oils and tallow are still in regular use, many soaps are made with both.

As for the soaps you mention: Castile soap is made with vegetable oils (originally, olive oil only). Ivory soap according to its MSDS is made with animal fats (i.e. tallow) and vegetable oils. So whatever is present in Castile soap is also present in Ivory soap.

LisaK said

Lye is not really used in soap any more. It's mostly tallow now days

Naptha is the primary ingredient in mothballs. Can't imagine Fels Naptha soap actually having Naptha in it today.

If you were conscious as I was in high school science class, you probably remember the demonstration/experiment using Naptha. It is essentially an ice at room temperature and liquefies at temps just above room temperature. One reason it's used for moth proofing!!

Ivory does not have anything in it that dangerous!

If you want to use Castille soap I'm not against it, but have a comfort zone with Ivory that I'll stick to!!

WRONG! get your facts. First of all it's naphtha, not naptha. Second, naphtha is a general term used to describe any number of hydrocarbons, mostly aromatic ring compounds. Naphtha is NOT the name of a specific chemical, so all chemicals vernacularly called "naphtha" will not be an "ice" at room temperature.

Moth balls are naphthalene, which is NOT naphtha.

One-eyes is correct.

Tallow is fat, the lye is the base. Both are needed to create soap.

Basic chemistry, which I believe Switchablesusie has covered before. The salt of a fatty acid and a base is a soap. In fact the chemical reaction that takes place is called saponification. So you can make soap out of just about any combination of a fatty acid, and just about any base. While Lye (Sodium Hydroxide) is probably most commonly used, so is Potassium Hydroxide. While other bases could be used, they are likely to result in soaps that have very limited/poor solubility. For example most calcium and magnesium compounds are no where near as soluble as Sodium and potassium compounds, so there are few calcium and/or magnesium based soap products.

While other bases could be used, they are likely to result in soaps that have very limited/poor solubility. For example most calcium and magnesium compounds are no where near as soluble as Sodium and potassium compounds, so there are few calcium and/or magnesium based soap products.

Potassium soap is soft soap, mostly sold in liquid form (dissolved in water).

Magnesium soap is insoluble and quite useless. You can make it very easily by adding Epsom salts to a soap solution. Calcium soap is the major constituent of the scum you get when you try to lather soap in hard water (water containing dissolved calcium salts). Also quite useless and a nuisance.

Actually, if you Google for ‘magnesium soap’ you do find some products so described. They apparently contain added magnesium chloride and are associated with some highly dodgy health claims.