Liquid soap, called soap jelly, was made at home, not bought in stores over a hundred years ago. Many women felt that jelly soap was far superior than hard soap and some of the upper class women would only wash themselves with the liquid soaps they made, or had their housekeepers make.
Here is how they made jelly soap.
Soap Jelly Always Best
Preparation That Will Appeal at Once to the Woman of Fastidious Taste
If once you form the habit of using the liquid soap on your skin you will wonder why you did not do so long ago, and you will hardly care to use cake soap.
Soap jelly is best, since it does not clog the pores, and is much quicker and more surely rinsed from the skin.
Try the following, and see if you do not approve it: Take a cake of your favorite soap, weighing about four ounces, shave it fine, then pour three quarts of boiling water over it and all it to stand where it will remain gently warm on the back of a range or over a radiator until all the soap is dissolved. Then remove from heat, and when cold pour it into a large kettle; if the soap is unscented, a teaspoonful of any essential oil, such as oil of rose geranium, lavender or rosemary, may be added to the entire amount.
Now from the larger bottle fill a convenient sized one to leave on the washstand; there will be no mussy or sloppy soap or soap dishes standing about.
Women who are fastidious and who take good care of their skin seldom if ever use hard soap; their favorite soap is purchased by the box and dissolved into soap jelly.
Source: The Lakeland evening telegram. (Lakeland, Fla.), 06 June 1914.
