Can you use the ash from your burned up Christmas tree (after the season) to make home-made soap?
Say, after Christmas, you take down your Christmas tree and cut it up for burning in the fireplace. Then, say, you collect those ashes. Could it then be used in a home-made lye soap recipe?
yep
you put the ashes in a strainer
pour hot water over them let them drip
= lye water
admin on January 17th 2010 in soap recipes
William B responded on 17 Jan 2010 at 11:46 am #
yep
you put the ashes in a strainer
pour hot water over them let them drip
= lye water
References :
old timer
ed responded on 17 Jan 2010 at 12:09 pm #
i thought it only worked if you use oak ashes not pine
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randyw36 responded on 17 Jan 2010 at 12:46 pm #
Hard woods like oak work better, but pine and fir trees will work. The only problem with using your Christmas tree is there will be very little ash and thus very little "lye water." My grandmother refused to join the 20th century and made liquid soap from animal fats during butchering season and ashes she saved all season from the fireplaces. It took a rain barrel full of ashes to make a couple of gallons of lye water after it was boiled down to be strong enough to saponify (turn into soap) the fats.
Using ash produces potash or potassium hydroxide, which is used to make liquid soap. Grandma would then harden some by pitching in handfuls of table salt. Hard soap floated to the top and could be skimmed off and thrown into a mold for hardening.
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