Frontier Women

Frontier women save money by producing their own soap with fireplace ashes and pig fat, or lard. They create lye by passing water over the ashes, leaching out the caustic cleaning agent. Once the lye is sufficiently powerful -- some say when an egg floats atop it -- they combine it with pails of lard, boil, stir, skim off the top layer and allow it to harden before cutting it into useable pieces.