SCENTING SOAPS HOT.

In the previous remarks, the methods explained of scenting soap involved the necessity of melting it.  The high temperature of the soap under these circumstances involves the obvious loss of a great deal of perfume by evaporation.  With very highly scented soaps, and with perfume of an expensive character, the loss of ottos is too great to be borne in a commercial sense; hence the adoption of the plan of

SCENTING SOAPS COLD.

This method is exceedingly convenient and economical for scenting small batches, involving merely mechanical labor, the tools required being simply an ordinary carpenter’s plane, and a good marble mortar, and lignum vitae pestle.

The woodwork of the plane must be fashioned at each end, so that when placed over the mortar it remains firm and not easily moved by the parallel pressure of the soap against its projecting blade.

To commence operations, we take first 7 lbs., 14 lbs., or 21 lbs. of the bars of the soap that it is intended to perfume.  The plane is now laid upside down across the top of the mortar.

Things being thus arranged, the whole of the soap is to be pushed across the plane until it is all reduced into fine shavings.  Like the French “Charbonnier,” who does not saw the wood, but woods the saw, so it will be perceived that in this process we do not plane the soap, but that we soap the plane, the shavings of which fall lightly into the mortar as quickly as produced.

[Illustration:  Soaping the Plane.]

Soap, as generally received from the maker, is the proper condition for thus working; but if it has been in stock any time it becomes too hard, and must have from one to three ounces of distilled water sprinkled in the shaving for every pound of soap employed, and must lay for at least twenty-four hours to be absorbed before the perfume is added.

When it is determined what size the cakes of soap are to be, what they are to sell for, and what it is intended they should cost, then the maker can measure out his perfume.

In a general way, soaps scented in this way retail from 4_s._ to 10_s._ per pound, bearing about 100 per cent. profit, which is not too much considering their limited sale.  The soap being in a proper physical condition with regard to moisture, &c., is now to have the perfume well stirred into it.  The pestle is then set to work for the process of incorporation.  After a couple of hours of “warm exercise,” the soap is generally expected to be free from streaks, and to be of one uniform consistency.

For perfuming soap in large portions by the cold process, instead of using the pestle and mortar as an incorporator, it is more convenient and economical to employ a mill similar in construction to a cake chocolate-mill, or a flake cocoa-mill; any mechanical apparatus that answers for mixing paste and crushing lumps will serve pretty well for blending soap together.