To Lengthen the Life of a Broom

Your broom will last much longer and be made tough and pliable, by dipping for a minute or two, in a pail of boiling suds, once a week. A carpet will wear longer if swept with a broom treated in this way. Leave your broom bottom side up, or hang it.

Source: Things Mother Used To Make, L.M. Gurney

Soft Soap

All mutton and ham fat should be melted and strained into a large stone pot. The practice of throwing lumps of fat into a pot, and waiting till there are several pounds before trying them out, is a disgusting one, as often such a receptacle is alive with maggots. Try out the fat, and strain as carefully as you would lard or beef drippings, and it is then always ready for use. If concentrated lye or potash, which comes in little tins, is used, directions will be found on the tins. Otherwise allow a pound of stone potash to every pound of grease. Twelve pounds of each will make a barrel of soft soap.

Crack the potash in small pieces. Put in a large kettle with two gallons of water, and boil till dissolved. Then add the grease, and, when melted, pour all into a tight barrel. Fill it up with boiling water, and for a week, stir daily for five or ten minutes. It will gradually become like jelly.

Source: The Easiest Way in Housekeeping and Cooking, H. Campbell

To take out Mildew from Linen

Mix some soft soap with powdered starch, half as much salt, and the juice of a lemon ; apply on both sides with a brush, and lay it on the grass day and night, till the stain comes out.

Source: Valuable Receipts, J.M. Prescott

To keep away Bed-Bugs

Scald and saturate the holes and bedstead thoroughly with hot strong soap-suds, or water diluted with corrosive sublimate ; dip the cord also in the same liquor. Then, before putting up the bedstead, dip the feathered end of a quill into soft soap, or hard soap melted, or any kind of paint, and work it round in the cord-holes of the beams and elsev/here. This renders every part obnoxious to them, and they will not inhabit it.

Source: Valuable Receipts, J.M. Prescott

Soap for Whitening The Hands

Into a wineglass of eau-de-cologne and a wineglass of lemon-juice, scrape two cakes of brown Windsor soap very finely, and mix well. When it becomes hard it will be an excellent soap for whitening the hands.

Source: Cassell’s Household Guide

Linseed Oil with Lime

Take of:

• Linseed oil,
• Lime water,

of each equal parts. Mix them.

This liniment is extremely useful in cases of scalds or burns, being singularly efficacious in preventing, if applied in time, the inflammation subsequent to burns or scalds; or even in removing it, after it has come on.

It is also a species of soap, and might be called Soap of Lime, although it probably contains a great excess of oil.

Source: The Edinburgh New Dispensatory, Andrew Duncan

Burns

Make a thick paste of molasses and flour, or castile soap and flour, covering the parts so as to entirely exclude the air. For a deep burn, dress daily with lime water and linseed oil, equal parts.

Source: The Kansas Home Cook-Book

Mildew

Equal parts of lemon juice, salt, powdered starch, and soft soap ; rub on thickly, and lay on the grass in the hot sun ; repeat this process two or three times a day.

Source: The Unrivalled Cook-Book and Housekeeper’s Guide, Mrs Washington

Powerful Rubefacient

(Good with friction for rheumatism, sprains, etc.). — One ounce of yellow bar soap, one ounce of boiling water, and three ounces of hot olive-oil, dissolved together ; half an ounce of camphor dissolved in the olive oil; when the above ingredients are well amalgamated, add one quarter ounce of oil of origanum ; half an ounce of spirits of ammonia; thrice the quantity of spirits of wine. Stir until nearly cold, then keep well corked in wide jars.

Source: The Unrivalled Cook-Book and Housekeeper’s Guide, Mrs Washington

To Prevent Horses’ Feet from Scalding or Cracking

Coat the hoofs once a week with an ointment consisting of equal parts of soap fat, yellow wax, linseed oil, Venice turpentine, and Norway tar; melt the wax separately before mixing.

Source: The Unrivalled Cook-Book and Housekeeper’s Guide, Mrs Washington