It looks like the venison soap project was a success! The cut bars are aging and even a week early they are pretty good for hand washing. They still don't lather much but it was pointed out in Making the Most of Your Deer by Dennis Walrod that sudsing just keeps the bubble part of the soap away from your skin where it is needed, so we are not going to fret about that. The soap does clean well and rinses clean and odor free so we are happy.
It is lye soap, though, so I wouldn't use it as face soap. We saw an episode of The Beverly Hillbillies on television the other night where Granny is helping spruce up Ellie Mae and has carried water to an old wooden tub for a bath in the kitchen. Jane Hathaway is on the mission, too, and has arrived with perfumes, soaps and fancy duds. Jane is horrified to see Ellie Mae using Granny's lye soap and protests. Granny says she has used it her whole life and they all look at her skin which Jane says is "leathery." Yep, Granny says proudly. So unless we are after the look of leather, I think the soap is best reserved for hands.
Bob cut the soap up into bars and trimmed the fancy molded ones and now it is aging. There is still a chance that some unencorporated pockets of lye could be lurking inside the bars but in all the slicing and shaping Bob found none. The soap would still be usable so I am confident in proclaiming success.
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