The scented soap being put into the frames, speedily consolidates. Some recommend to pass the finished fused soap through a tammy cloth, in order to free it from all clots and impurities; a very proper precaution in the act of transferring it to the frame. If the preceding instructions be observed, we obtain a soap perfect in every point of view; possessing a delicious fragrance, equally rich and agreeable, a beautiful roseate hue, and the softest detergent qualities, which keeping cannot impair. Such a soap has, in fact, been known to retain every property in perfection during four or five years. When the essential oils are particularly volatile, they should not be added to the soap till its temperature has fallen to about 140° Fahr.; but in this case a more careful trituration is required. The economy is, however, ill bestowed; for the cakes made of such cooler soap, are never so homogeneous and glossy.
Soap au bouquet.—30 pounds of good tallow soap; 4 ounces of essence of bergamot; oil of cloves, sassafras, and thyme, 1 ounce each; neroli, 1⁄2 ounce. The colour is given with 7 ounces of brown ochre.
Cinnamon Soap.—30 pounds of good tallow soap; 20 ditto of palm-oil soap. Perfumes:—7 ounces of essence of cinnamon; 11⁄4 ditto sassafras; 11⁄4 ditto bergamot. Colour:—1 pound of yellow ochre.
Orange-flower Soap.—30 pounds of good tallow soap; 20 ditto palm-oil soap. Perfumes:—71⁄2 ounces essence of Portugal; 71⁄2 ditto amber. Colour:—91⁄2 ounces, consisting of 81⁄4 of a yellow-green pigment, and 11⁄4 of red lead.
Musk Soap.—30 pounds of good tallow soap; 20 ditto palm-oil soap. Perfumes:—Powder of cloves, of pale roses, gilliflower, each 41⁄2 ounces; essence of bergamot, and essence of musk, each 31⁄2 ounces. Colour:—4 ounces of brown ochre, or Spanish brown.
Bitter Almond Soap.—Is made by compounding, with 50 pounds of the best white soap, 10 ounces of the essence of bitter almonds.
LIGHT SOAPS.
The apparatus employed for making these soaps, is a copper pan, heated by a water-bath; in the bottom of the pan there is a step, to receive the lower end of a vertical shaft, to which arms or paddles are attached, for producing constant agitation, by causing them to revolve among the liquefied mass. Into a pan so mounted, 50 pounds of a good oil soap of any kind are put (for a tallow soap does not become frothy enough), and melted by proper heat, with the addition of 3 or 4 pounds of water. By the rapid rotation of the machine, an abundant thick lather is produced, beginning first at the bottom, and creeping gradually upwards to the top of the pan, when the operation should be stopped; the soap having by this time doubled its volume. It must now be pailed off into the frame, allowed to cool, and then cut into cakes. Such soap is exceedingly pleasant at the wash-stand, feeling very soft upon the skin, affording a copious thick lather, and dissolving with the greatest ease.
TRANSPARENT SOAPS.
These soaps were for a long time manufactured only in England, where the process was kept a profound secret. They are now made every where.