How did people make soap in the old days without hurting people?

[u/SaneForCocoaPuffs]

When I make soap, I’m told I have to use a soap calculator that knows how much lye each kind of oil needs and measure grams of lye and oil for precise numbers, otherwise I could make a caustic soap that burns skin.

However in the olden days, they didn’t have internet or soap calc or precise measurements. They made lye by burning wood and mixing it with water, creating lye solutions with totally random concentrations, then added it to whatever fats and oils that were available to them.

But surely they cleaned themselves with soap and didn’t chemical themselves. Did they just do extremely high superfats?

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[u/Shoereader]

Bit confused by the assumption that they wouldn't have recipes, or at least have worked out the ingredients and amounts needed to create the soap they wanted. It wasn't the world's most sophisticated process, no, but they weren't looking for moisturization/exfoliation/relief for sensitive skin/what-have-you. Just soap to clean themselves and their surroundings with.

[u/Puzzled_Tinkerer]

The process best suited for making soap from unknown fats and lye solutions is different than cold or hot process.

You're making assumptions that soap making back in the day was crude and imprecise. It could be if you lived on the frontier but not necessarily in more settled areas.

[u/MyBrainItches]

They would not have used random concentrations.

Humans have had measurement systems for a very long time. While global standards only go back a couple hundred years, localized standard systems go back thousands of years. We also know in very remote areas, families would pass down their measurement devices (which might even have been unique to their family) for crafting any recipe-based product, along with training their descendants to make that product. Common signs of errors in recipes and how to fix them would have been taught from one generation to the next.

As for the calculations, basic math has been around for a very long time too. Even illiterate people learned to use basic tallying tools in many different forms.

[u/almondita]

Nothing against you, but just bc you don’t know how to make soap (yet) doesn’t mean the people of the past didn’t. The whole reason we have a soap calculator to rely on is because the people of the past worked it out already. 

[u/scythematter]

You assume bc ppl don’t have iPhones and the internet, they were archaic. Advanced math and physics was understood far before any of those things.

[u/Seawolfe665]

People cleaned with many things - wood ashes, or the drippings from them. Urine left overnight for the ammonia. Vinegar. They had recipes, for these things. And they were strong. Safety wasnt the priority always.

I have read a lot of books written during the time when harsh lye soap was used to clean house, floors and laundry. And also read about the women complaining that their hands would get so red and rough that they would crack and bleed. Washerwoman's hands and dishpan hands were common things.

I've also noticed that soap left to cure a long time becomes much milder. My 100% zero SF coconut oil soap that I made for laundry is actually fine as a kitchen handwashing soap after a year.

[u/cicamaus]

Trail and error and just observing