Letter from Dick Bulinski
Soap – June 2004 – Colorado Central Magazine
Regarding “Soap to Savor” in the May edition:
What a refreshing little story of a person who knows what she wants to do, is persistent, and isn’t ashamed of admitting early mistakes — until she finally gets it right.
There is one typo. Saponification was missing an i. I never was a chemist, but I know the word from who knows where.
Also, there is a small omission of history in telling of the reason a person wants to buy lye. Yes, the early reasons were to make soap with the fat she had rendered and saved in a “fat can” on the back of the stove.
But before it became a component of amphetamines — and even today — lye was the drain-cleaner of choice, although nowadays usually under such fancy names as Drano and Liquid Plum’r, etc.
Been there, done that.
Dick Bulinski
Boulder
