Homemade ash lye, liquid soap and soap bars. DIY
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- Опубліковано 7 лют 2025
- I make ash lye from hardwood ash from the wood stove on our off-grid homestead. It's easy, but takes some time. When the lye is finished, I make both liquid hand soap and soap bars with the homemade lye and purified lamb fat, tallow. Another home-made short-travel product for a more self-sufficient life here in the Norwegian forest🙂
#soap #homesteading #offgrid #ashlye
#liquidsoaps #tallow #selfsufficient #diy #homestead #homemade #shorttravel
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And here is the first soap video mention: ua-cam.com/video/dZcZABO-wrU/v-deo.htmlsi=A5HUKJOO8-JYsPZy
I've heard families would have an outdoor lye barrel. Basically a barrel they would dump their ash into with the top open and a bung at the bottom. Rain would fill the barrel over time or you could add water and let it steep and remove bottom bung if you needed some lye for soap. No idea how well it worked, never tried it, but sounds interesting if you have a lot of ash and make a lot of soap.
Yes, it certainly sounds like the best way to make larger quantities of lye. I have seen several good illustrations of lye barrels, and it looks doable. Maybe it will be our next soapy project?😃
Great video - thank you!
Thank you so much for the lovely feedback 🙂
This was absolutely fascinating and educational to watch. Thank you so much for this video.
Thank you very much for the kind comment, and thank you for watching 🙂❤️
From an old guy who used to make soap with his grandmother over 60 years ago - Thank you very much and all the best.
What a lovely message. Thank you for writing♥
Do you remember how she made the lye?
@@overratedprogrammer I remember perfectly, because I helped through the entire process. It's easy and have made plenty of soap over the years.
@@QuantumMech_88 do you boil the ashes like this lady, strain them through or soak them?
@@overratedprogrammer I pour hot water over ashes in a bucket . Let it soak and stir occasionally during a 12 hour soak time . Pour off the liquid through cloth and leave the solids behind.
The number of alergy vulnerable people is constantly increasing. So this DIY video is just for them 😊
My doughter's alergy reaction for ordinary soap made me to look for natural products.
We have a wood stove - we produce quite a lot of birch and oak ash. However I have only access to veg oil. Perhaps I should give it a try 🎉
Thank you so much for the tutorial. Best wishes to all Wild and Wooly team 🐈⬛🐑🐖
There are so many chemicals, perfumes and artificial additives in everything, so really no wonder that there are more and more allergies. Hope it's not serious for your daughter? It should go well and make soap with vegetable oils too.🙂 I am impressed by how mild this ash lye soap is compared to the sodium lye soaps that we usually make. The liquid soap also worked well as a shampoo, which is a positive surprise.
With my teenager doughter it is a severe reaction to each soap except the ones which are with no additives.
I need to do the soap your way.
I just need time 😊 So probably in December before Christmas. I will give you a feedback 😇
Thanks ❤ your soap looks so creamy.
It's sad to hear about your daughter's allergy, but she's so lucky to have you❤️ We're excited to hear how your soap project is going, so please keep us updated 🙂🙂
Eat more bacon to get fat 😊
@@wildandwoolly This is absolutely fantastic. As Rudolf Steiner always said the more natural and the more whole the substances are kept the better it is for our health, the animals' health and for the Earth.
Omg this is amazing!!! I wish i can make my own lye someday.
❤️ Thank you so much🙂 It is so much fun, hope you get to try it some day to😃
Nice video. Thank you for demonstrating how to make soap.
Thank you so much 🙂 Wish you a continued lovely weekend 🙂
18.44 in video looks like George Washington president lol ... I love your voice I'm trying to soap and I love how your doing it
😂 08:30 I found George Washington to😅 I think we can safely say that making soap is drawing lines through history 😅
@wildandwoolly yep 😀 😉
@wildandwoolly merry Christmas
Merry Christmas to you to🎄🙂
I love soap making! Making my own lye is one of the things on my bucket list to do! You did a great job! 🌟
As for the soap, I think the way you made it allows for a softer& smoother grain. I, however, am to impatient and do a complete hot process with mine. I like being able to use my soaps the same day I make them! 😌
Soap making is so much fun🙂Thank you so much for sweet comments❤️ I'm probably a little too impatient myself, but the soap became hard and really foamy in the end, after "only" 4 weeks🙂
Wow can't believe
Is best soap wood ash video weee blessed ✨
Thank you so much 🙂🙂🙂
At what point does it become caustic? And what is the potatoe used for? Is it supposed to float? I’m sorry I couldn’t understand what you said about it. Fascinating. My grandmother used to make her own lye from ash & then soap. She was making this until the late 80’s. She was an amazing woman. Thank you for sharing this.
Hi there🙂So nice to hear about your grandmother, there is so much knowledge that generation had which unfortunately is in danger of being forgotten. My English is not the best, so it's great that you ask: The potato should float in the lye, with about 10 percent of its volume above the lye. Then the solution is potent enough to make soap. The ash water is already alkaline from the time it is filtered from the ash, but not concentrated enough for soap making until it is boiled down.
Wow, so interesting❤❤❤❤❤
Glad you liked it 🙂🙂
Beautiful video. Is Woolly your sheep or dog? Are you living in Finland? I recommend to you to not use metal pans and pots and utensils. Those can be reacting with the soap ingredients that are highly alkaline. I have not made soap yet but I will use ceramic enamel coated pots so that the sodium does not etch on the metal molecules. I'm still learning about the soap making process and different forms of making soap. Natural soda ash the way you made it is great. Another way to make soap is using plant based glycerine which I think is much milder. Depends on what type of soap to make.
Hello there, The woolly are both our mangalitsa pigs (woolly pigs) and the sheep. The Norwegian breed name for the sheep is "wild sheep". So hence the channel's name wild and woolly. We also live in the middle of the wilderness. 🙂 You are absolutely right that lye will etch many materials, including aluminum boilers. I use stainless steel pots, have never read research that suggests it can react with lye, have you? or was your feedback intended in relation to other types of metal pots?
It's great fun making soap, and so many exciting possibilities when you make things from scratch❤️🙂
@@wildandwoolly Oh ok. Maybe it doesn't react with stainless steel that's good to know. But I will still use enamel cookware because it has a glass coating which is safer overall. When I make cosmetic I use dried sticks from branches which works the best for stirring the oils, clays and waxes together. I only work with oil and wax which makes the best skin creams that last for many years. I also make sun cream with white Kaolin clay and zinc oxide which works very wonderfully. I'm never buying anymore commercial creams. We have a home in Oregon. On the way home we always drove past a meadow that had woolly pigs with curls haha I love those. Their hair color was kind of orange. And on another meadow we saw pigs with black curls. So cute.
@@nickidaisydandelion4044 Woolly pigs are very cute☺️❤️ We have black and sand colored but have also had the beautiful rust red one. So fabulous that you make all your skin products yourself. It commands respect. I was inspired by you to also try and make suncreem this year, we have bought it so far and my skin just can't take it. Wishing you a lovely day☺️
@@wildandwoolly So wonderful. Yes I know that the commercial sun lotions are no good they all seem to contain some chemicals that are not beneficial. I picked about a hundred daisies and laid them out on one of my self made sweaters and they are drying now for a few weeks and then I will put them into a ceramic cup and pour about half a cup of soybean oil into it and then let it sit for two or three months to do the cold infusion absolute. Some people do many infusions with the same solution but then it gets too thick. I only do one application. When the infusion is done I take the plant material out and put white Kaolin clay into the cup into the oil and also zinc oxide for the sun cream action. Then I put beeswax pellets into it. With beeswax you use about one part beeswax and 4 parts oil which makes a nice thick cream. You can also use 5 parts out of 6 when you use more of the clay powders and also if you use coconut oil as well. I still had a bunch of coconut oil from many years ago when there was a close out sale but I don't buy it anymore because they exploit monkeys in the tropical regions when they harvest coconuts it's all very sad. So now I'm just going to use the very rest of the coconut oil that I have left in one jar for this upcoming sun cream. And after that I will only use beeswax pellets to thicken the cream. You can also use Mango wax and other plant waxes. I am super inspired by your video which is the absolute Best video from all soap making videos on UA-cam. I saw on Google that some stores sell those silicone molds for soaps and other goodies. The soap and whatever one pours in that solidifies will come out easier out of those very soft molds I think I might get one of those they have very cool shapes. You can also pour gummy bear material into those and get huge gummies out of it. Been searching Agar Agar based gummy bear making which is a seaweed powder. It's the vegan version of thickeners. Your soap looks amazing. I definitely want to try this out.
@@nickidaisydandelion4044 Oh, thank you so much for taking the time to write more about the sunscreen. Yes, I don't know what it is about the store-bought creams, but I always end up with red itchy skin, so this year it will be homemade! Yippie!!🙂😀 We have a lot of beeswax since we have bees, so we already use it for ointments and creams🙂 Thanks for the kind words, and good luck with your soap project🙂🙂
Thanks for the video
you are a great.
Thank you so much♥🙂
Supppeerrr ! Thanks a lot for showing how to make natural lye...I never understood how everybody uses toxic lye to make "natural" soaps....😢 They are dressed in the process like some martians, and than they use the finished soap on their skin....😮 I will definitely try your recepy..., our grandmothers for sure made their soaps in a likely way... All the best in the future!
Thank you very much for the feedback 🙂 I thought the same thing, and it's really not difficult to use the ashes to make lye. 🙂Wishing you a continued good week , and hope you will have great success with the soap making 🙂
Wonderful! The procedure is so so natural and fascinating. Will give it a trial now that I have all the ingredients.😂
Homemade lye is also a dangerous chemical and should be used with care and caution.
ALL true soap is made with lye - either sodium hydroxide or potassium hydroxide. It does make an all natural soap because by the end of the soap making processes there is no free lye left in the bar of soap. All soap is made with water, lye, and fat as the basic ingredients.
Thanks
You are very welcome 🙂
Is it possible for me to make ash lye with vegetable oil?
It should be possible to make soap with ash lye and vegetable oil as well, but I haven't tried it so I don't know the mixing ratio. If you try, I'd love to hear how it went 🙂
Thanks so much! I love making soap. But this is good to know for when you can't buy any lye from the store
Yes, it feels good to not always be dependent on the store 🙂 Thanks for watching the video🙂🙂
Nice I enjoyed this so much ...🙂 ❤ ... and if you will have another attempt making soap with ash lye try to add salt to the lye solution to help with the hardness of the bar ... And if you do please share 😃
Hello there🙂So nice that you liked the video. 🙂 When I make soap again, I will definitely try using salt.
This time, I thought it was interesting to see how it went without it, and now after a few weeks of drying, they are almost normally hard, but the surface is not exactly smooth, so they have to be cut a bit to look nice.
I wish you a continued good week 🙂
I love ❤your simple and very natural process, thanks so much I have learnt so much in this simple method and cost effective too.
Idy ,
Nigeria
Can I add fragrance to the lye soap and when can I do so assuming am using it for the skin?
Thank you so much ❤️ yes, you can a fragrance to the lye soap, you can add it when you’re done stirring, just before you add the liquid to the form for hardening😊
I have been searching for hours for how to do this and this is by far the most complete and detailed and best instructions on how to do it. One question. What does the bar soap smell like??
Thank you very much for your kind feedback. 🙂 It's such a shame that something so basic is forgotten over time. I also spent a lot of time finding out how easy it really is. My soap smells almost nothing, very faintly of some undefined dinner/ food. But it is also made from lamb fat. 🙂Good luck with your Soap project 🙂
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Wow thank you so much! Im so excited starting to make my own lye and soap at home... i have a question if i can also use cococnut oil or olive oil instead of animal fats? Also you have a measure there to check the degrees.. is it possible without that? Please let me know.. oh and another question, i didnt quite understand the trick with the potatoe.. when its clean then the lye is ready? Thank you very much! This video is the only i could find on youtube being so helpful🙏🏻🙏🏻🙏🏻🌷🌷🌷
Hello there☺️Thank you very much for the nice feedback 🙂 It's fine to make soap with fats other than animal fat, but I'm not sure about the quantity in relation to lye water then. The potato is to measure when the lye has become strong enough, the correct strength of the lye is when the potato floats in the liquid by about 1/10 above the lye water. Good luck with soap and lye making 🙂
@@wildandwoolly okey! Thank you very much🙏🏻🙏🏻
Hi! Thank you so much for sharing in details how to make soap from hard wood ash. It's just amazing! My grandma also used to make it but I wasn't interested at that time in learning from her.
I tried right away for the first time I watched and studied your video with all information. I changed a little the recipe adding a little olive oil because I didn't have enough animal fat. My soap batch came out not too firm as yours on the next day. So, I waited for 2 more days and it's still too soft to cut it. I don't know if I should wait more or rebatch it adding some more fat or lye? Do you have any idea? Also could it be a possibility to just reheat it again in order to get it harder? Thanks so much!
So fun that you've tried making soap from scratch using ash lye! 😀 I have to admit, I'm not sure what the best next steps would be. If it has saponified (lathers when you try washing with it), it might be a good idea to let the soap mass sit out for a week or two to allow the liquid to evaporate. My soaps, even though they were harder than yours, took two weeks to fully dry and harden. Alternatively, you could mix it with water to make liquid soap 🙂. I still have some liquid soap left from this video batch, and it’s really good for the hands. Good luck! I hope it works out for you one way or the other. Sorry that I can’t be of more help 🙂
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Ohhhh, thank you for this, it really looks "doable"
I have been trying to think up of ways to use the stove ashes for a while (we have so much and the garden gets most of it, but you have to be careful not to use too much) And it just seems like such a shame. Sure making my own soap won't really make a huge dent on the pounds of ash we produce, but it will make a fun dent on it hahahaha.
Two questions: 1) for your soap process in your video, I count see so well how much ash you used. 2) what did the lye on its own smell like? I am pretty scent sensitive and don't have sheep (so I would also like to go unscented and find a recipe for olive oil and unscented coconut oil) but what does the lye smell like??
Greetings from my fire here in Germany to yours ! 👋🏾
Thanks for the comment 🙂 Yes, it's really not difficult, and yet another great way to use a "leftover product" - the ash. Here we use most of the ash to sprinkle on the ice in the winter, it melts so nicely into the ice so it is not so slippery and hard to get around 🙂 In the video I use about 10 liters of silt ash, and 5 liters of water.
The smell is so hard to describe, I think it smells clean, like unscented detergents did when I was very young. Not really an intrusive smell. I wish you the best of luck with the soap project 🙂
Good job ! I've been searching for this homemade lye soap,and here it is ! But one question please 🙏 , were you heating the solution after pouring in the lye or just stirring?
Thanks for the question🙂I heated the lye/fat mix three times until the batter had a smooth non grainy appearance (didn't separate) while stirring continuously 🙂
Thank you. This takes longer
Great video.
Is there an amount water to ash that we need to begin with?
So nice that you liked the video🙂 I started with enough water so that all the ashes were barely covered with water.
No offense to the channel Wild and Woolly, though I would advice people to watch some more videos about making lye and soap. The lady is very nice, but she is forgetting to mention a number of things, like that one should not use aluminum, lye can be dangerous, you need to ventilate very well while using and making it, and it can be extreemly harsch on the skin. One should have some vinegar by hand, if you get lye on your skin, you should rinse it off right away, and pour vinegar over it, to neutralize the lye. Also I hear it is important to use the fatt first, and then the lye, not the other way around. And you should use good gloves when you use lye. That is just a few things that came to me right away, please find more videos so you inform yourself really well. Much love to the channel and everybody else!
You are so right🙂. It is of course important to do thorough research and familiarize yourself with the entire soaping process and precautionary procedures before starting with corrosive chemicals such as lye. We expect people to do that before they get to the stage where they want to try to make the lye themselves from ashes. Even though ash lye is less strong than normal lye, it is absolutely wise to use gloves, glasses, long-sleeved sweaters, etc. as you point out. 🙂 Aluminum does not belong in soap making. Many thanks for your feedback and good advice. Wishing you a lovely weekend.
You have plenty of time to wash lye drops of your hands and you don’t even need the vinegar. Lye stains on clothes is more likely to be an issue… or even holes etched in the clothes.
@@peterfireflylund Guess it depends on how strong the lye is. If it can burn holes in your clothes, it may burn holes in your skin. Have a good weekend.
You can not compare ash lye to caustic soda. Ash lye is more natural. Caustic soda is chemical. However, caution should not be overlooked. Stay blessed
Lye/caustic soda + vinegar = exothermic reaction! Much better to rinse wuth *plain water to dilute* than make another thermal reaction to burn skin. Fight Club was incorrect and put potentially damaging info into the world, pls don't believe everything you read/watch on TV!
Cheers!
Wondering what the difference is, if any, between lamb fat soap, goat fat soap, beef fat soap?
It was a very good question that I myself started to wonder about now.🙂 So I asked chat gpt: "In soap making, fats are used to provide consistency and properties to the soap. The main difference between lamb fat, beef fat, and goat fat lies in the composition of fatty acids. Lamb fat typically has a higher proportion of unsaturated fatty acids, which can result in a milder and more moisturizing soap. Beef fat has a balance of saturated and unsaturated fatty acids, while goat fat may be firmer and have a distinctive scent due to its specific fatty acid composition. The choice of fat often depends on the desired consistency, scent, and properties in the final soap." 🙂
I raised sheep for many years. Too busy around the farm to do the handicrafts. Always wanted to process the wool and make oil from the fat. I personally use goat soap. Raised goats too. Just loved them. Thanks for info.
Just wondering, Can you put some natural scent in the soap? Like you did with ryllik in the other soap video? Im thinking about making soap like this, in my viking life, but i think i would put some scent in. Maybe honey or/and goatmilk?
@@annelinkristiansen5007 You can certainly have sent in the soap. The easiest way is to stir in a few drops of essential oil as the last step in the stirring process, but a strong herbal tea will probably also work well as long as the liquid level does not become very high, as the soap will not become solid. You mention milk and honey, I have tried it with regular lye, and it turned out very well, but with a little beeswax in addition, it went to absolutely fantastic.😅
In did viking life, do you make clothes and everything in Viking style? It is so great that there are people like you who preserve a living historical knowledge. ☺️
@@wildandwoolly I make my own clothes, bying wool and linen fabric. I don`t handsew everything, only small things. Don`t have fingers to handsew. My next project is a viking tent. This year it will be like a lavvo, next year i will extend it to a saxer tent. That`s because wool fabric (vadmel) is expensive. And i am kind of new to the viking life, so i don`t have everything i need yet. But my plan is to get everything autentic in the end.
The lye making seems a harder than the actual soap making.
Yes, it is half the job☺️ But it is possible to "cheat" and buy lye. But strictly speaking, I am surprised at how easy it is to make everything from scratch🙂
Hello,
Can you tell me plz that,
Do wood ash lye soaps smells like wood ash...?
They smell really little, since I've used lame fat it smells faintly of dinner😅, the ash lye itself was almost odorless, a faint whiff of old-fashioned perfume-free detergent perhaps.😊
Thank you for replying to me @ wildandwooly, your video on Ash lye Soap is great and very clear to understand.
I have been working for organic soaps for the past one year.
But for the past several months, I had been looking for a way to make 100% natural soap without using chemical based lye.
This video is really helpfull to me
Thanks again for sharing 🙏💕
❤️❤️☺️ Thank you very much for your super kind feedback. We are really glad that the video is useful 🙂
Can you explain how the potato test works exactly? Is that for measure the ph worth ?
It is the same principle as in brine. The more salt, the easier/higher in the water the potato or other things float. Lye is also a combination of salts, and the stronger the lye is boiled down to, the higher a potato will float. When the potato floats by about 1/10 above the lye water, the lye is sufficiently concentrated.🙂
Hej från Sverige. Is it Tallow fat ? or Lamb fat ?
Hei🙂 It is lamb tallow, purified fat from lamb.
Have a question is it still OK to ues the pots for cooking after a wash or no
Stainless steel pots withstand both lye and soap boiling well and can be used again for cooking after a wash. 😊
Would of been faster with a whisk, or immersion blender, your poor arm! 😂
Did the soap harden well?
Hahaha😂 You are so right👍😊😂 Yes the soap became nice and firm in the end😊
Video not wideo
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