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 ...

Soap-makers love to tell the story of how ancient Romans first “discovered” soap by burning animal sacrifices on Mount Sapo, and how the creeks at the bottom of that mythological mountain were the ...

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 ...

Our Arkansas ancestors did the same thing, but generations of Arkansas women also used wood ashes to make lye soap. So far, my wife has refused to revive that tradition. Making soap is an ancient ...

Hot and cold processes are two methods for making soap from scratch. Both involve combining a lye solution with oils until the mixture reaches trace—the point at which the combination ...

Did you know that instead of discarding the ashes from your fireplace, you can actually use them to make an ingredient for a ...

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 ...

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 ...