The complete servant / Being a practical guide to the peculiar duties and business of all descriptions of servants, from the housekeeper to the servant of all-work, and from the land steward to the foot-boy. With useful receipts and tables

by servant Samuel Adams; Sarah Adams

336. ALMOND SOAP.

Upon 1 lb. of quick-lime, pour 3 quarts of boiling distilled water; add 1 lb. of salt of tartar, dissolved in 1 quart of water; cover the vessel, and when cold, filter through a cotton cloth: a pint should weigh exactly 16 ounces troy; if more, add distilled water, and if less evaporate. Then add one third of oil of almonds, simmer them together for some hours, or until the oil forms a jelly; when cool, which may be tried on a small quantity, add common salt, and then continue boiling till the soap is solid; when cold, skim off the water, and then pour into moulds.

337. Another Method.

Take 2 lbs. of soap ley, made of barilla or kelp, so strong that a bottle, holding half a pint of water, will hold 11 ounces of the ley, and 4 lbs of oil of almonds; rub them together in a mortar, and put the mixture into tin moulds, where let it be for some weeks, till the combination is perfect.

338. MARBLED SOAP BALLS.

Take ten pounds of white oil soap, and ten pounds of Joppa soap. Cut them into small square pieces, which set to dry for three days: the oil-soap, particularly, must be thus dried.

Scrape, very finely, five pounds of oil-soap, which dry for one day, in the open air, mix it well in the shaving-box with five pounds of powder, add an ounce and a half of the best vermilion.

In mixing, place pieces of soap, and coloured powder, in layers in the box, making, in all, four alternate layers of each. When a layer of each has been placed in the box, sprinkle a pint of rose-water over the cut soap; for if it be much combined with the powder, it will become lumpy and hard, and consequently spoil the wash-balls. The same quantity of rose-water is to be used for moistening each of the other soap layers. Next mix a pint of thin starch, which has been well boiled in half a pint of rain water, with half a pint of rose-water, and distribute it equally well mixed among the mass, by turning it over repeatedly, and then press it down close with the hands. If a piece be now cut out from the mass, the operator will perceive whether the marbling is sufficiently good; and if so, he may proceed immediately to form his wash-balls.

339. TO IMITATE NAPLES SOAP.

Take of fresh ley, strong enough to bear an egg, eight pounds, and put to it of deer’s, goat’s, or lamb’s suet, (which has previously been well cleansed from all skins, &c. by rose-water,) two pounds, and one pound of olive-oil, or rather behn-nut oil. Let all these simmer over the fire in a well-glazed pot, until it be pretty nearly of the consistence of crown or Naples soap; then turn it out into a large flat pan, which set on the leads or roof of the house, exposed to the heat of the sun for fifty days. The pan must be covered over with a bell glass, such as the gardeners use, and the mixture must be stirred once a day, during the whole of this time.