Saturday Morning With Jack Tame

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 I, when animal fats were in limited supply, German scientists developed synthetic detergents — and commercial soap was born. Homemade soap became less of a necessity, and gradually the practice dwindled. In recent years, back-to-the-landers and simple-living adherents have revived the homemade soap-making process. It’s not only in favor with those who leave the big city for rural life or those with an anti-commercialist bent. For anyone interested in living as self-sufficiently as possible, it makes good sense to make your own soap.  Homemade soap is good for your wallet: you can make big batches of soap from scratch for less than it costs to buy bar after bar at your local drugstore, and you can reuse leftover bits to make new soap. It's good for your body, without all the potentially harmful chemicals in commer