How can you make soap without Tallow or Lye?

Answer 1

Hitler turned people into soap by burning them and getting their body fat. he then took the body fat and used it to make soap.

Look out someone out there has been using dead bodies to wash themselves!

Answer 2

You cannot make traditional soap without a chemical agent such as lye or sodium hydroxide. This causes the saponate reaction with the fats to produce soap. It is worth noting that the traditional lye method will not produce bar soap. However there, are plant based saponates, as discussed below.

There are some plants that are actually used as soaps: soapwort (or bouncing bet), soapnuts, yucca root, pokeweed root, or buckeyes (or horse chestnut) are some of the more common in the USA. Dry the plant, pods, or roots out chop up into small pieces, then place with water in a bottle and shake. It is only a liquid soap. Soapwort is used to clean delicate old fiber in museums. You can learn more about soapnuts at the related link below (as well as recipes for soaps containing lye and many other things)

I also read.... if you have the right conditions, you can grow shampoo ginger, which is one of the saponin producing plants. You won't get the lather that we expect from soap (and you don't need lather to get clean; most soaps these days contain lathering agents because we've gotten so used to associating suds with cleaning power), but it does work. You squeeze or crush the flower head and get a slightly slippery fluid out of it. This is the "soap" or "shampoo".

There is actually a type of soap made with ash (instead of lye) that you can purchase/find online (but be picky as to where you buy it and what it looks like) it's called "African Black Soap". It has been made in different parts of Africa for centuries and each region seems to have their own variation of the same recipe. Most genuine African Black Soap's are somewhat crumbly and not particularly attractive in appearance. I've seen some that actually kind of looks like cooked meatloaf...

You could also try looking up more information on Google... maybe, "Why is lye used in homemade soap" or something along those lines...

Anyway, this is just information I have gleaned from different areas of the internet so I'm not sure how (or if) any of this works. It's very interesting though, and I'd love to know if anyone else has tried any of these methods and what type of recipe they may have followed (or made).

There are articles that can be found on Mother Earth News' website that have countless useful information. I'm a huge fan. My mother used to get Mother Earth News Magazine when I was little. It never gets old. It's timeless.

Answer 3

You could cut the soap into small shavings and dissolve it in water.

However, it's probably just as cheap, and much easier, to simply buy liquid soap in the first place.