Timeline for How did people wash dishes before dish detergent?
Current License: CC BY-SA 3.0
19 events
| when toggle format | what | by | license | comment | |
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| Apr 3, 2018 at 9:33 | comment | added | cbeleites | @chepner: Soap (chemical term) means the salt of a fatty acid (from oil/grease). If the soap is produced with (pot)ash, i.e. K⁺ from KOH or K2CO3, the resulting soap is basic (alkaline), as it is the salt of a strong base with a weak acid. Modern neutral or slightly acidic detergents for for manual dish washing are quite different from such "classic" soaps. | |
| Mar 30, 2018 at 20:38 | comment | added | Dawood ibn Kareem | @JDługosz thumbs.dreamstime.com/z/… ? | |
| Mar 30, 2018 at 13:52 | comment | added | chepner | Yes, the limiting reactant here is the ash. Water plus ash make lye. Lye burns skin as well as reacting with oil (and subcutaneous fat) to make soap. Once all the lye has reacted, you are just left with soapy burns on your hands. The less ash you use, the less exposure to lye you suffer from. (But the comments here really aren't the right place for a chemistry lesson, especially given my tenuous grasp of the subject.) | |
| Mar 30, 2018 at 3:43 | comment | added | Ooker | @chepner but as you said in the previous comment, wet ash+ skin oil= soap, which is fine. Are you saying that it's the over added ash harms? | |
| Mar 29, 2018 at 19:28 | history | edited | sds | CC BY-SA 3.0 |
grammar
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| Mar 29, 2018 at 14:10 | comment | added | chepner | Soap isn't a base anymore. (My comment is probably also a gross oversimplification; see en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Saponification for a better explanation.) | |
| Mar 29, 2018 at 14:05 | comment | added | Ooker | @chepner but then what are the differences between soap+skin and base+skin? | |
| Mar 29, 2018 at 13:49 | comment | added | Karaelfte | @Ooker It's coarse and rough and irritating. And it gets everywhere. | |
| Mar 29, 2018 at 13:40 | history | edited | sds | CC BY-SA 3.0 |
add links about skin damage
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| Mar 29, 2018 at 13:01 | comment | added | chepner | Soap is made from a base and a fat. The wet ash provides the base, and your skin provides the fat. | |
| Mar 29, 2018 at 12:51 | comment | added | IMil | Had the same experience in Karelia... however, in the late 90's we started taking Fairy on our trips, and there was much rejoicing. | |
| Mar 29, 2018 at 7:51 | comment | added | Syndic | @Ooker the sand method is not nice to your skin because it's abrasive. The ash + fat soap is as DRF mentioned a base - which attacks dirt, but also your skin. And since you're not measuring out the proportions of ash and fat carefully, there's little telling how strong the base gets (better quickly add water to dilute if it hurts your skin) | |
| Mar 29, 2018 at 7:00 | comment | added | DRF | @Ooker I'm guessing they make a base which is no better. | |
| Mar 29, 2018 at 6:17 | comment | added | Ooker | Why are they not nice to skin? They don't make acid, right? | |
| Mar 29, 2018 at 5:58 | comment | added | Gnudiff | Not nicr to hands meand you just use a small piece of rag to put ash in, and wipe the dishes with that. My father used to do this at our summer cottage [where we had a stove] when soap was scarce in the USSR. | |
| Mar 28, 2018 at 20:17 | comment | added | JDługosz | I also find that the dog can get stuck-on bits off a plate (like microwave burned). Quite impressive, actually. | |
| Mar 28, 2018 at 17:10 | history | edited | sds | CC BY-SA 3.0 |
PS
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| Mar 28, 2018 at 16:53 | comment | added | Alex | I confirm this. Ash is a good replacement of soap. | |
| Mar 28, 2018 at 15:53 | history | answered | sds | CC BY-SA 3.0 |
