Although there were no high-tech products like those in modern times, there were still quite a few things available for cleaning in ancient times. The most popular ones nowadays are scented soap and bath beans.
There is not much difference between the two. Both involve first removing the blood and fat from the pig's pancreas, then grinding it into a paste, adding bean flour and spices, and shaping it into balls, which becomes the most common type of bath bean.
Fragrant soap is made by adding white sugar during the production process and using wood ash instead of bean flour to press it into blocks.
Whether it's scented soap or bath beans, they are not just single-purpose cleaning products, but can be used for washing your face, hair, body, and clothes.
But don't be fooled by their simple ingredients; they're not cheap. A single bar of scented soap can cost anywhere from ten or twenty coins to over a hundred.
Bath beans are relatively cheaper, but even a small box can cost more than ten coins.
Many farmers who couldn't even fill their stomachs naturally couldn't afford to buy things, so they could only start with what they had around them.
The most common material is wood ash. If your hands are dirty, just take a handful of wood ash from the stove, rub it in, and you can clean them.
The reason is that wood ash contains potassium carbonate, which is an alkaline substance and has a good effect on removing grease.
The soap that Meng Zhao was making was mainly made of lard and wood ash water.
First, take some wood ash, mix it with water, filter out the impurities, let it settle overnight, allowing the alkaline water to separate into layers. Pour out the upper layer of pure alkaline water. This will make the finished product whiter.
Then I found a large iron pot, poured in water, and then cut a bowl of pork fat into it. First, I heated it over high heat to dry out the water, and then simmered it over low heat to extract the fat.
Remove the rendered lard and let it cool. Sprinkle a small handful of fine salt into the room-temperature lard, then pour in pure alkaline water and stir continuously in one direction.
Until the saponification reaction occurs, the liquid gradually turns into a thick paste. The milky white paste is then poured little by little into the cut bamboo tubes to set.
While the lard was being pressed, the three children were reading in the yard. But once the steaming lard cracklings were ladled out, they couldn't concentrate on their books anymore and kept circling around Meng Zhao.
Meng Zhao took a small bowl, filled it with some oil and sprinkled some salt and pepper powder on it, and handed it to them to share. "Eat it later. The fried pork cracklings are very hot. Don't let them burn you."
The golden-brown pork cracklings were fragrant and crispy, and the children couldn't stop eating them, one after another. Meng Zhao, however, had been staring at the pork cracklings the whole time and only ate two pieces before she couldn't eat anymore.
Two days later, the soap had fully solidified. The bamboo tube was split open, and cotton thread was used to cut it into round pieces of soap.
At this time, the soap was in the testing phase. If it was cut too thick, it would take a long time to air dry. So Meng Zhao cut it as thin as possible and then spread it in a bamboo basket to air dry and saponify slowly.
At the same time, she added ingredients such as Poria cocos, tea seed cake, mugwort, and pearl to the basic soap to create a variety of soaps, which were then left to saponify.
As summer approaches and temperatures gradually rise, the soap dries much faster. Once several products were completed, the testing phase began.
First, there was a comparative test, which included soapberry commonly used by farmers, scented soap commonly found on the market, and several types of soap made by Meng Zhao himself.
"Mother, what happened to those aprons I asked you to keep a few days ago?" They usually work in the shop and their clothes inevitably get covered in grease. They usually have to wash them frequently to get them clean. This time, Meng Zhao specially kept them for a few days to test them.
Meanwhile, she also found some dirty rags from cleaning the stove, as well as clothes with ink stains on the children's clothes, which were all difficult to wash. If these things could be cleaned, then other ordinary stains would be no problem.
The two found a table and began cleaning and testing with the prepared items. Gu was able to tell the difference in soap as soon as she started using it.
"Zhaozhao, your soap feels a little different. It's smooth and slippery, and it's not sticky."
After saying that, he started scrubbing the apron under his hands. Usually, for this kind of grease that wasn't washed off immediately, he had to soak it in soap for a long time and then rub it vigorously to remove even a little bit.
Now, all you need to do is rub the clothes with soap a few times and gently massage them for a while, and only a faint mark will remain. Then, soak the clothes in water and massage them a few more times, and the original stain will be almost completely gone.
"This soap works really well, it cleans so well!"
"Mother, try this scented soap again."
Gu tried it and found that it could wash off the clothes, but it was not as good as soap. "This scented soap is quite good, but you have to scrub it hard to get it clean, unlike the soap we just used, which you can just soak and rub. Also, clothes washed with scented soap always have a smell, and if you don't dry them in the sun, you can still smell the smell after they're dry."
When Gu Shi used the last piece, he immediately noticed its uniqueness as soon as he put it in the water. "Hey, why does this one have a fragrance? This scent? It's so familiar!"
Meng Zhao explained with a smile, "This is called soap. I added essential oils to it, so your clothes will smell like flowers after washing."
Madam Gu suddenly realized, "Oh~ I remember now, that strange thing you brought from the blacksmith shop before, it was used to make this essential oil, right?"
Meng Zhao nodded. She was just trying it out and didn't know if it would succeed, so she didn't mention it to anyone else. She just drew a blueprint and took it to the blacksmith shop to make it.
When the drawings were handed to the blacksmith, he was also confused. This thing was neither a pot nor a lid, and it had so many pipes. But Meng Zhao paid him generously and provided detailed drawings, so no matter what it was, he would try his best to make it.
After bringing all the parts home, Meng Zhao began assembling them himself. Distillation requires a tight seal, but there was no good way to do it, so Meng Zhao could only use yellow mud to seal it.
Shen Qingyu saw that Meng Zhao had been staying in the house, so she came to find her to play. She found her sister-in-law wandering around a strange stove with two tubes sticking out from it, both of which were submerged in water.
"Sister-in-law, what are you doing?" Shen Qingyu asked in confusion.
Meng Zhao was very nervous at the moment and didn't have time to answer her. After all, she didn't have ice water and could only use the freshly drawn well water to condense it. As time went on, the well water would slowly get hot, so she needed to keep changing the well water.
She kept heating the stove, and steam overflowed from the pipe. The gas passed through the part that was soaked in well water, and as the temperature dropped, it condensed into water droplets, which slowly dripped into the cup at the mouth of the pipe.
When Meng Zhao's water had completely boiled away, only half a cup of liquid had been distilled out. She handed the item to Shen Qingyu and asked her to smell it.
Ever since water droplets started dripping, the room has been filled with fragrance. Shen Qingyu brought the cup closer and took a sniff, and was immediately amazed by the rich floral scent. "Wow, sister-in-law, this smells so good!"
After all, ordinary flowers, even when piled together, don't have such a fragrant effect, and the liquid in the cup has such a strong floral scent, which is truly surprising.
Continue read on readnovelmtl.com
