Soap is made by boiling down oils or fats in a water solution of caustic soda or potash. Through the acid properties of the fats, the oleine, stearine, margarine, etc., which they contain, combine with the alkali to produce the saponified compound.

Hard soap is made with soda; soft soap with potash. The more oleine in the fat, the softer the soap; the more stearine the harder. Rosin is also largely used, sometimes to the extent of one-third the weight of the soap. It increases its hardness, makes it dissolve easier in water and forms a more copious lather.

The Most Economical Soap.

Soap may be two-thirds water and still remain solid. Even dry, hard soap contains 20 or 25 per cent. of moisture. An excess of water causes soap to waste or dissolve too freely in use; hence, as soap is perpetually losing water by evaporation, the most economical to buy is that with some age and moderately dry, yet not so much dried that it will not dissolve readily and make a good lather or suds.

Effects of Strong Soap on Fabrics.

Soap must not be strong enough to injure fabrics or discharge colors, yet sufficiently powerful to render grease and dirt soluble, so that it may be washed away in water. Rosin soap hardens the fibers of wool, and alkalies, if used to excess, shrink woolen fabrics. Hard water, or that containing lime or magnesia, more or less decomposes soap, and it floats on the surface as a greasy scum. But if an oily film rises to the top of soft water, it shows that the fat in the soap is not all saponified. Soft water is better than hard for fabrics.

What Soaps Are Made Of.

Common Yellow Bar Soap contains soda with fat and rosin. White Soap consists of tallow and soda. Castile Soap is made of olive oil and soda. Common Fancy Soaps are mainly ordinary soap colored and scented. Real Brown Windsor Soap is made of goat tallow, olive oil and soda. Transparent Soaps are those which have been dissolved in alcohol. Fine Toilet Soaps are made with as little alkali as possible, of almond, palm or olive oil, suet, lard, etc., colored and perfumed.

Shaving Soaps and Creams are made either with soda or potash, of fine tallow or cocoanut oil, which has the property of making a strong lather. Mottled Soaps owe their variegations of color to the use of iron oxides. It is said that these cannot be effectively applied if the soap contains an excess of water, and that more skill is required to make good blue mottled soap than any other. The more any soap is worked over, or remelted, cooled, etc., the better it becomes.

A Wide Range of Choice.

There is a great variety of soaps upon the market, and language has been ransacked to find appropriate names for them. Among them are “Family,” “Laundry,” “Ivory,” “Best Soap,” “Electric,” “Ozone,” “Borax,” “Sand Soap,” “Silver Soap,” “Sapolio,” etc., and many scouring and detergent articles, as “Pearline,” “Soapine,” “Scourene,” “Washing Compound,” “Washing Crystal,” etc.

In Toilet Soaps there is an equally wide range of choice, embracing every color and variegation of color, and every perfume that is agreeable to the smell. Soaps are also charged with disinfecting substances, as carbolic acid, etc., and variously medicated with sulphur, camphor, glycerine, and other materials for softening and healing the skin.

Laundry starch is mostly made from corn. The grain is crushed and fermented to a degree, when the starch is washed out and allowed to settle in large vats. The best qualities are washed and settled again and again; the number of washings grading the strength, purity and cost. Potato starch is more costly than corn starch, and, as it gives a softer finish to fabrics, is chiefly used by manufacturers. Corn starch for culinary purposes is thoroughly washed, purified and deodorized. Laundry starch should never be eaten.

The best laundry starch is in large, hard, flinty crystals; such indicate a stronger starch, containing less moisture than that with small or soft crystals. Laundry starch comes in bulk or boxes, and in paper packages. There are many fancy proprietary brands of starch, as “Ivory,” “Ivorine,” “Gloss,” “Satin Gloss,” “Silver Gloss,” “Gloss Polish,” “Elastic,” etc. Some of them are powdered, and contain borax, wax, or gum, etc., and are scented with winter-green, etc. Such come higher than the better grades of laundry starch in crystals, but it is a question if they are proportionately superior for family use. Starch polishes are preparations of spermaceti, wax, or paraffine.

Blueing (Laundry).

This article may be had in balls, powders, or in a liquid form. There are a goodly number of proprietary brands, some of which give a tint which appears somewhat greenish when placed by the side of a pure and delicate blue. The coloring principle is usually indigo, Prussian blue, or the favorite ultramarine. The most satisfactory laundry blueing is that which is really and intensely blue in tint, and which is most completely soluble in water, so that it will be well distributed and not make the clothes look streaked.

Candles.

In some sections, candles form an important article of trade. They are now made in a great variety of exquisite tints by the use of analine colors of various sizes and weights, and with patent self-fitting ends. The more costly kinds are made of spermaceti, wax, stearine, paraffine, etc., down to the pressed, adamantine, and common tallow candles. Some carry embossed and handsome decalcomania decorations and are either white, blue, green, pink, yellow, red, etc., or assorted. There are “Boudoir,” “Piano,” “Cleopatra,” “Cable,” and “Flag” candles, wax “Night Lights,” “Christmas Tree Candles,” and wax “Gas Lighters,” warranted not to drip.

Brushes.—No domestic article is in more common use than the brush in its various forms. The best bristles come from the wild hog of Russia and Poland. The whitest and finest are used for paint, tooth, hat, hair, and clothes brushes. Some brushes are made with one tuft only, like the paint brush, others with many. The best are “Wire drawn;” that is, the tufts are bent double to form loops through which wires are passed, to draw and hold them firmly into the holes of the base. Others have the tufts wedged or glued in. Brushes are made with long and short handles, and of every conceivable form and quality, from “Sink scrubs” upward.

Brooms.—The finer the corn the better the broom. A natural green color indicates toughness and flexibility, and such corn is better than that which is of a sickly yellow or lemon color. But the latter is often given the desired green tint by artificial colorings. Plain or unpainted handles are best, good brooms weigh 25 to 30 pounds to the dozen, but extra large and heavy ones are made weighing 40 to 50 pounds.

Washboards.—There are fifty or more varieties of these “Monday Morning Pianos.” Metal scrubbers are preferred to wood, which is liable to splinter, wound the fingers, and tear the clothes. And a plain crimp is better for fabrics than a rougher crimp, although the latter may extract the dirt quicker. A favorite variety have adjustable chest protectors. Clothes pins are of two kinds, the old fashioned and the spring clasp. The latter are little used.

Mops.—There are two kinds in the stores; one of twisted twine, which is generally thought to be most durable, the other of cotton and less expensive.

Stove Polish.—This is chiefly plumbago or black lead. Among the favorite brands are “Dixon,” “Rising Sun,” “A. B. C.,” etc. There is also a liquid preparation or “Enamel,” said to give a good polish without dust or smell, and with little labor.

Blacking.—The best is that which will, without injury to the leather, most easily and quickly give a handsome and durable polish. Besides the excellent domestic varieties, there are the French Marcerou, and Jacquot’s, in tin boxes, which are reliable and but little more expensive, and the old time Day & Martin’s blacking in stone jugs. For ladies’ use there are many domestic and imported SHOE DRESSINGS in liquid form, which require no rubbing.

Matches.—Common sulphur matches are made both square and round, and come packed in various kinds of boxes and papers. Parlor matches, of American, Swedish, and other foreign manufacture, are made without sulphur; and chloride of potash, antimony, etc., are often used instead of phosphorus. The splints are sometimes soaked in oil or paraffine to make them burn freely. Safety Matches have the phosphorus on sand paper and the other materials on the ends of the splints, and neither can be ignited except by friction with the other. There are many kinds of WAX TAPERS, “Flaming Lights,” etc.

Seeds.—The raising of seeds has become a large industry. Leading producers make careful tests of all their seeds, and even offer valuable prizes for the best vegetables and flowers grown from them. Some grocers lay in every season a fresh and full supply of all the seeds used in the garden or field, and they are almost always reliable.

Birdseed, Food, ETC.—Canary seed comes both in bulk and pound packages, either alone or mixed with millet, German rape seed, etc.; many packages contain a piece of cuttle fish bone. There are BIRD GRAVEL, BIRD PEPPER, MOCKING BIRD FOOD in bottles, etc.

Insect Powder.—There are a number of these vegetable preparations which are effective, if genuine and unadulterated, as the Persian, Buhach (or Californian), Dalmatian, etc.

Disinfectants.—Chloride of Lime in various sized packages of tin and paper, and various liquid preparations in bottles and kegs, are put up for domestic use.

Pails.—Ordinary water pails have either 2 or 3 hoops. Those not painted on the inside are preferred. Wood pulp pails give good satisfaction, and a new pail with sunken hoops is just coming into market.

Grocers’ Sundries.

Among other articles sometimes kept by the grocer, may be mentioned: Irish Moss, Anatto and other butter colorings, Licorice, Chewing Gum, Fruit Juices, Hops, Rennet, Ink, Paper and Pens, Pencils, Slates, Mucilage, Playing Cards, Beeswax, Cement, Concentrated Potash, Lye, Lime, Chalk, Oils, Kerosene, Dyes, Paints dry and mixed; Rosin, Tar, Turpentine, White Lead, Varnishes, Indigo, Glue, Putty, Powder, Shot, Caps, Wads, Axle Grease, Curry Combs, Condition Powders, Can Openers, Cordage, Coffee Mills, Bath Brick, Polishing Powder, Wick, Baskets, Boxes in Nests, Tubs, Dippers, Measures, Lemon Squeezers, Mouse Traps, Sieves, Feather Dusters, Rolling Pins, Ax Handles, Tacks, Crockery, Glass and Stone Ware, Borax, Bay Rum, Ammonia, Sponges, Camphor, Sal Soda, Perfumes, Plasters, Fly Killer Paper, Witch Hazel, and a great variety of standard drugs and proprietary medicines.