PUMICE OR SAND SOAPS.
Pumice and sand are at times added to soap to aid in the removal of dirt in cleansing the hands. In some cases these soaps are made in the form of a cake, in others they are sold in cans in the form of a paste.
A hand paste is usually made by merely dissolving ordinary tallow base in two or three times its weight of hot water and mixing in the desired quantity of pumice or sand and in some instances adding a little glycerine to keep it soft or a solvent of some kind for grease. It may also be made by directly incorporating any of these in a potash soap.
A cold made or semi-boiled cocoanut or palm kernel oil soap is the base used to add the pumice or sand to in making a cake soap of this sort. The following formulae serve as a guide for these soaps.
| I. | ||
| Palm Kernel or Ceylon Cocoanut Oil | 705 | lbs. |
| Pumice (Powdered) | 281 | " |
| Soda Lye, 38° B. | 378 | " |
| II. | ||
| Cocoanut Oil | 100 | " |
| Soda Lye, 38° B. | 55 | " |
| Water | 6 | " |
| Silver Sand (fine) | 60 | " |
To proceed place the oil in a crutcher and heat to 140° F. Sift in the pumice and mix thoroughly. The lye is then added which causes a curdling of the grain. The stirring is continued until the grain closes and the soap is smooth, after which the desired perfume is added and the soap dropped into a frame and crutched by hand. When the soap is set, it is slabbed, cut into cakes, dried slightly and pressed.