Until around 1916, making soap at home was commonplace. Using wood or plant ashes and leftover animal fats, families produced their own soap for cleaning their clothes and themselves. During World War ...

SCOTT -- The first thing one learns when making soap is that there is a lot of stirring involved. And trickling. And waiting. And hoping not to blow anything up. But, boy, does it smell good. An eager ...

Today I put a thin layer of wood ashes over my vegetable garden, trusting that the potash will enrich the soil with the winter rains. Our Arkansas ancestors did the same thing, but generations of ...

From tallow balm and natural candles to lip balm and now, even homemade soap! This simple ingredient has quickly become one ...

This story first appeared on Food52, an online community that gives you everything you need for a happier kitchen and home – that means tested recipes, a shop full of beautiful products, a cooking ...

So bear with me here. This column is eventually going to be about soap but I have to put it into a bit of perspective. A few weeks back Grant Robinson, who lives here in Garrard County, sent me some ...

We use soap every day, whether to wash ourselves, our clothes or our dishes. In the supermarket, it is easy to come by and ...

Readers, this is the fourth of 12 basic homestead skills we’ll be presenting every month throughout 2019 from Kimberlee Bastien’s new book, 52 Homestead Skills. We invite you to join Kimberlee and her ...

I recently made a gingerbread sugar scrub and body butter that smelled so amazing, I knew I needed a homemade gingerbread ...

Lye soap is made by boiling a mixture of lye (sodium hydroxide) and animal fats. Lye could be purchased, but most Arkansans seem to have made their own from wood ashes. Almost all the sources specify ...