[Illustration:  Frame and Slab Gauge.]

The soap is then turned into the “frame.”  The frame is a box made in sections, in order that it can be taken to pieces, so that the soap can be cut up when cold; the sections or “lifts” are frequently made of the width of the intended bar of soap.

[Illustration:  Barring Gauge.]

Two or three days after the soap has been in the frame, it is cool enough to cut into slabs of the size of the lifts or sections of the frame; these slabs are set up edgeways to cool for a day or two more; it is then barred by means of a wire.  The lifts of the frame regulate the widths of the bars; the gauge regulates their breadth.  The density of the soap being pretty well known, the gauges are made so that the soap-cutter can cut up the bars either into fours, sixes, or eights; that is, either into squares of four, six, or eight to the pound weight.  Latterly, various mechanical arrangements have been introduced for soap-cutting, which in very large establishments, such as those at Marseilles in France, are great economisers of labor; but in England the “wire” is still used.

[Illustration:  Squaring Gauge.]

[Illustration:  Soap Scoop.]

For making tablet shapes the soap is first cut into squares, and is then put into a mould, and finally under a press—­a modification of an ordinary die or coin press.  Balls are cut by hand, with the aid of a little tool called a “scoop,” made of brass or ivory, being, in fact, a ring-shaped knife.  Balls are also made in the press with a mould of appropriate form.  The grotesque form and fruit shape are also obtained by the press and appropriate moulds.  The fruit-shaped soaps, after leaving the mould, are dipped into melted wax, and are then colored according to artificial fruit-makers’ rules.

[Illustration:  Soap Press.]

[Illustration:  Moulds.]

The “variegated” colored soaps are produced by adding the various colors, such as smalt and vermilion, previously mixed with water, to the soap in a melted state; these colors are but slightly crutched in, hence the streaky appearance or party color of the soap; this kind is also termed “marbled” soap.

ALMOND SOAP.

This soap, by some persons “supposed” to be made of “sweet almond oil,” and by others to be a mystic combination of sweet and bitter almonds, is in reality constituted thus:—­

Finest curd soap, 1 cwt.
  " oil soap, 14 lbs.
  " marine, 14 lbs. 
Otto of almonds, 1-1/2 lb.
  " cloves, 1/4 lb.
  " caraway, 1/2 lb.

By the time that half the curd soap is melted, the marine soap is to be added; when this is well crutched, then add the oil soap, and finish with the remaining curd.  When the whole is well melted, and just before turning it into the frame, crutch in the mixed perfume.