- 2 days ago
🔗 Save $6,000 A Year with My Complete Amish Home-Saving Method I teach:
https://eliasyoder.com
There is a thin curved sliver of soap in the dish by your sink right now, worn down to almost nothing, cracking apart when you try to hold it. In a day or two you are going to get annoyed with it and drop it in the trash. Everybody does.
Here is what you are really throwing away. You lose something like a tenth to a fifth of every bar you buy. That means of every seven bars you carry home, you throw one of them away, in pieces, spread across a year, so slowly you never feel it go.
Not one sliver of soap has ever gone in the trash in my house. Let me show you what we do instead.
In this video:
✓ The plain arithmetic on how much soap you throw away every year
✓ The old sock soap bag, and why it lathers better than the bar ever did
✓ How to press slivers into a whole new bar, and the scoring trick that makes them fuse
✓ Turning slivers into soap jelly for your hands, your dishes, and washing wool
✓ Grated soap into homemade laundry powder, and what each ingredient actually does
✓ Why washing soda matters more than you think in hard water
✓ The old carpenter's trick: a soap stub on a stubbo
https://eliasyoder.com
There is a thin curved sliver of soap in the dish by your sink right now, worn down to almost nothing, cracking apart when you try to hold it. In a day or two you are going to get annoyed with it and drop it in the trash. Everybody does.
Here is what you are really throwing away. You lose something like a tenth to a fifth of every bar you buy. That means of every seven bars you carry home, you throw one of them away, in pieces, spread across a year, so slowly you never feel it go.
Not one sliver of soap has ever gone in the trash in my house. Let me show you what we do instead.
In this video:
✓ The plain arithmetic on how much soap you throw away every year
✓ The old sock soap bag, and why it lathers better than the bar ever did
✓ How to press slivers into a whole new bar, and the scoring trick that makes them fuse
✓ Turning slivers into soap jelly for your hands, your dishes, and washing wool
✓ Grated soap into homemade laundry powder, and what each ingredient actually does
✓ Why washing soda matters more than you think in hard water
✓ The old carpenter's trick: a soap stub on a stubbo
Category
🛠️
LifestyleTranscript
00:00There's a thin, curved sliver of soap sitting in the dish by your sink right now,
00:05worn down to almost nothing, too small to hold on to, cracking apart when you try to use it.
00:11And in a day or two, you are going to pick it up, feel annoyed at it, and drop it
00:17in the trash.
00:18Everybody does.
00:20And I want to tell you what you are actually throwing away when you do that,
00:24because it is more than you think, and there is a plain old way to never lose a scrap of
00:30it again.
00:31I am Elias Yoder, and in our house not one sliver of soap has ever gone into the trash.
00:38Not one.
00:40And it is not out of any virtue, it is only that my grandmother would have taken the broom to
00:46me,
00:46and after enough years of that a habit sets in.
00:49So let me show you what we do instead, and I will show you what it is worth,
00:55and I think you will be surprised on both counts.
00:59Let me say one thing, and then I will not bring it up again.
01:03I have gathered these old ways into a book over at EliasYoder.com.
01:09If you want it, it is there.
01:12That is all.
01:13Now let us talk about soap.
01:16First, let us do the plain arithmetic, because I want you to see the size of this
01:21before we go any further.
01:23A bar of soap, when you finally give up on it, is not gone.
01:28Look at it.
01:29That sliver in your hand still has real soap in it.
01:34Depending on how stubborn you are about using it down,
01:37you are throwing away somewhere between a tenth and a fifth of every bar you buy.
01:43Call it 15%, near enough, as a fair guess across a whole household.
01:49Now think what that means.
01:51It means that of every seven bars of soap you carry home from the store,
01:56you throw one of them away.
01:58Not a scrap.
02:00A whole bar, in pieces, spread across a year.
02:05Every seventh bar goes in the trash without ever having been used.
02:11Now a bar of soap is not dear.
02:14But you buy them forever, and a family goes through a good many,
02:18and if you buy the nice soap, it adds up faster than you would think.
02:23Over the years of a household, it is real money in the bin,
02:28thrown away in pieces so small that you never once felt it go.
02:33And here is the thing that would have troubled my grandmother more than the money.
02:38It is not that it costs much.
02:40It is that it was perfectly good soap,
02:43and you threw it out because it had become inconvenient.
02:47That is a different sort of sin than being poor.
02:50That is waste.
02:52And waste was the thing she could not abide.
02:56And I have come round to her way of thinking on it.
02:59I remember being a boy of about nine and being caught.
03:03I had a sliver of soap in my hand at the wash basin,
03:07and it kept slipping and breaking,
03:09and I was cross with it.
03:11And I threw it in the slop bucket and reached for the new bar.
03:15And she was behind me,
03:17and she had seen the whole thing.
03:19And she did not raise her voice, which was worse.
03:23She reached into that slop bucket with her bare hand,
03:27and she fished that sliver out,
03:29and she washed it off,
03:31and she held it up in front of me.
03:33And she said,
03:34Tell me what is wrong with this.
03:37And I said it was too small.
03:39And she said,
03:41Too small for what?
03:42And I did not have an answer,
03:45because of course it was not too small to wash with.
03:49It was only too small to be easy.
03:52And then she said the thing I have never got out of my head.
03:56She said,
03:58You did not throw that away because it stopped working.
04:02You threw it away because it stopped being convenient.
04:06And those are not the same thing.
04:09And a person who cannot tell them apart
04:11will be poor his whole life,
04:14no matter how much he earns.
04:16That was the whole lesson,
04:18and she never had to give it twice.
04:21And I have thought about it a great deal since,
04:24because I look around now,
04:25and I see that near everything
04:27is built to be thrown away
04:29the moment it stops being easy.
04:32And not one thing in that pile
04:34has actually stopped working.
04:37That is the trade we have made,
04:39and most folks never noticed making it.
04:43So, four ways to never lose a sliver again.
04:47And they go from the simplest to the most useful.
04:50And the last one is the one
04:52that will genuinely change something in your household.
04:55The first is the plainest,
04:57and if you take nothing else from me,
04:59take this.
05:00Keep a soap bag.
05:02Take a scrap of cloth,
05:04an old washcloth,
05:05a bit of mesh,
05:07or the simplest of all,
05:08an old sock,
05:09one that has lost its partner,
05:11as socks do.
05:13And you make a little bag of it,
05:15or you just use the sock as it is,
05:17and you tie the top,
05:19or sew a bit of string on it.
05:21And now,
05:22every time a bar of soap wears down to a sliver,
05:25it does not go in the trash,
05:27it goes in the bag.
05:28You just drop it in,
05:30and you forget about it.
05:31And the slivers gather in there,
05:34and they gather,
05:34and after a while,
05:36you have a bag
05:37with a good handful of soap in it.
05:39And that bag,
05:41wetted,
05:41is a washing pouch.
05:43You wet it and squeeze it,
05:45and it lathers up beautifully,
05:47better than a bar in some ways,
05:49because the cloth
05:50gives you a bit of scrub to it,
05:52and every scrap of soap inside
05:54is getting used.
05:56There is nothing to drop,
05:58nothing too small to hold,
06:00nothing to throw away.
06:01You use it in the bath.
06:04You hang it by the outdoor pump
06:06for washing up after the barn.
06:08You keep one by the kitchen sink.
06:10And it will lather better
06:12than the bar ever did,
06:14and there is a plain reason for it
06:16that is worth knowing.
06:18A bar of soap is a solid block,
06:21and only the outside face of it
06:23is touching the water
06:24and doing anything.
06:26The whole inside of the bar
06:28is doing nothing at all
06:29until you have worn your way
06:31down to it.
06:32But slivers in a bag
06:34are broken up into many pieces
06:37with water running
06:38all through and around them,
06:40and every one of those pieces
06:42has its whole surface
06:44exposed at once.
06:45So you have far more soap
06:47meeting water at any moment
06:49than you ever did with a bar.
06:52That is the whole reason
06:54for the lather.
06:55You are not using more soap.
06:57You are using the soap you have
06:59far more efficiently,
07:01which is precisely the point
07:03of the whole business.
07:04And a word on what cloth to use,
07:07since it does matter a little.
07:09You want something
07:10with a bit of an open weave to it,
07:12so the water can get in
07:14and the lather can get out.
07:16A loose mesh,
07:18a bit of cheesecloth,
07:19an old sock that has gone thin,
07:22a scrap of old towel.
07:23What you do not want
07:26is something so tight and solid
07:28that the water cannot pass through it,
07:31because then the soap
07:32is sealed up in there,
07:33doing nothing.
07:35Loose and open is what you want,
07:37and rough is better than smooth,
07:40because rough gives you the scrub.
07:42And when the soap in it
07:44is finally, truly gone,
07:46you open it up,
07:47and you drop the next slivers in,
07:50and you go on.
07:51That bag will serve you for years.
07:54It costs you nothing.
07:56It is one sock
07:58and one piece of string,
07:59and you will never
08:01throw away soap again.
08:03The second way
08:04is to make the slivers
08:06into a new bar,
08:07and this is the one
08:08that pleases folks the most,
08:10because it feels like
08:11a small piece of magic.
08:13Gather up your slivers,
08:15four or five of them,
08:17however many you have saved.
08:18Wet them all thoroughly
08:20under warm water,
08:22good and wet,
08:23until the surfaces go soft
08:25and a little slimy.
08:27Now press them together,
08:29hard, in your hands.
08:31Squeeze them and mash them,
08:33and work them like
08:34you were shaping a snowball,
08:36pressing the soft,
08:37wet faces of them
08:39into one another.
08:40Then set that lump aside
08:42somewhere dry,
08:43and leave it alone
08:45for a few days.
08:46And what happens
08:47is that the water
08:48goes out of it,
08:50and as it dries,
08:51the soft faces
08:52you press together
08:54harden into one,
08:55and you have a new bar.
08:58It is a homely-looking thing,
09:00mottled and odd-colored,
09:02where the different soaps met,
09:04and I rather like that about it.
09:06But it is a whole bar again,
09:09solid,
09:09and it will not fall apart on you,
09:12and it came out of the trash.
09:14And here is a small thing
09:16that makes this work far better,
09:18and hardly anybody knows it.
09:20Before you press them,
09:22take a knife and score
09:23the wet faces of the slivers.
09:25Scratch them up
09:27with cross-hatched lines.
09:29Rough surfaces bind to one another
09:32far better than smooth ones.
09:34It is the same reason
09:35a carpenter roughs up a joint
09:38before he glues it.
09:39Score them,
09:41wet them,
09:42press them,
09:42dry them,
09:44and they will fuse
09:45into one bar
09:46that holds.
09:47The third way
09:48is soap jelly,
09:49and this one turns
09:50a hard sliver
09:51into something
09:52more useful
09:53than it ever was
09:54as a bar.
09:55Take your slivers
09:57and grate them,
09:58and I mean
09:59a plain kitchen grater,
10:00the same one
10:01you would grate
10:02a cheese on,
10:03and you run the bar
10:04across it,
10:04and it comes off
10:05in little curls
10:06and shreds.
10:08Now,
10:08put those shreds
10:09in a jar or a bowl
10:11and pour hot water
10:12over them
10:13and stir.
10:14The soap dissolves.
10:16Give it a few hours
10:17or overnight,
10:18and what you will find
10:19in the morning
10:20is not water
10:21and not soap,
10:22but something between,
10:24a thick,
10:25soft jelly,
10:26a gel,
10:27and that gel
10:28is wonderfully useful.
10:30It goes in a pump
10:32bottle by the sink,
10:33and it is your hand soap,
10:35and you did not buy
10:36a bottle of hand soap.
10:38It goes in a jar
10:39for washing dishes.
10:41It is grand
10:42for washing wool,
10:43which does not like
10:45a harsh soap
10:45and does like
10:47a gentle one.
10:48A little of it
10:49in warm water
10:50is a fine wash
10:51for anything delicate.
10:53Play with the amount
10:54of water
10:54until you like
10:55the thickness.
10:56More water,
10:57and it stays runny
10:58like a liquid soap.
11:00Less water,
11:01and it goes thick
11:02like a paste.
11:03Neither is wrong.
11:05It is your soap,
11:06and you make it
11:07how you want it.
11:09Now,
11:10the fourth way,
11:11and this is the one
11:12I really brought you
11:13here for,
11:14because this is the one
11:15that saves you
11:16real money every week
11:17for as long
11:18as you keep a house.
11:20This is laundry soap,
11:22and here is where
11:23that grater
11:24earns its keep,
11:25because grated soap
11:27is exactly
11:27what you want.
11:29Now,
11:29I want to say
11:30something first,
11:31because I know
11:32what you are thinking.
11:33There is a thing
11:34going about
11:35that says
11:35you should grate up
11:36a bar of soap
11:37and scatter it
11:38around your garden
11:39to keep the deer
11:40and the rabbits
11:41and the mice
11:42and the spiders away.
11:44And folks tell it
11:45to one another,
11:46and it gets passed on
11:47and passed on.
11:49I am not going
11:50to tell you that.
11:51I have not found
11:52it to be so,
11:53and I would rather say
11:55I do not know
11:56than tell you a thing
11:57that will disappoint you.
11:58A deer that is hungry
12:01enough will walk past
12:02a great deal
12:03to eat your beans,
12:04and I have watched
12:05them do it.
12:06So I will not send you
12:08out to scatter
12:09good soap in the dirt
12:11on my say-so.
12:13Save your soap
12:14for washing,
12:15which is the thing
12:16soap is genuinely
12:17and reliably wonderful at,
12:19and I will show you
12:20a use for it
12:21that I can stand behind.
12:24So, laundry soap.
12:25Here is the old way,
12:28and it is three things.
12:29You take your grated soap,
12:31a good cup of it,
12:33packed.
12:34Grate it fine,
12:35and the finer you grate it,
12:37the better it will dissolve,
12:38and if it comes off
12:39the grater in big curls,
12:41run it through again
12:43or crumble it small
12:44in your hands.
12:46To that,
12:47you add washing soda,
12:48about two cups.
12:50Now,
12:51washing soda is not the same
12:52as the baking soda
12:54in your cupboard,
12:55though they are cousins,
12:56and I have talked
12:57about it before.
12:58It is stronger,
13:00and it is what cuts
13:01the grease
13:02and softens hard water
13:03so your soap
13:05can actually do its work.
13:07You will find it
13:08in a box
13:08on the laundry shelf
13:10at any store.
13:11And then,
13:12borax,
13:13about two cups.
13:15Borax helps
13:16the whole business along.
13:18It brightens
13:19and it deodorizes,
13:20and it makes the soap
13:22work better in the wash.
13:23Mix those three together
13:25in a bucket,
13:27stir them well
13:27until they are one
13:28even powder,
13:30and put it in a jar
13:31or a tin
13:32with a lid.
13:33And that is laundry soap.
13:36Two tablespoons
13:37in a load,
13:38or three for a really
13:39dirty load
13:40of work clothes,
13:41and it washes
13:42as well as anything
13:43you can buy.
13:45And I want you to understand
13:46what each of those three
13:48is doing,
13:49because then you are
13:50not following a recipe,
13:51you are actually
13:52knowing something,
13:54and a man who knows
13:55why a thing works
13:56can fix it
13:58when it does not.
13:59The soap
14:00is the cleaner.
14:01That is the part
14:02that grabs hold
14:03of the grease
14:04and the dirt
14:05and lets the water
14:06carry it away.
14:07That is the actual work,
14:09and it is being done
14:11by the scraps
14:11you were going
14:12to throw out.
14:13The washing soda
14:15is the helper,
14:16and here is what
14:17it helps with.
14:17Your water,
14:19unless you have
14:20softened it,
14:21is full of minerals,
14:22and those minerals
14:23grab onto your soap
14:25and turn it into
14:26a curd,
14:26a scum,
14:28before it can ever
14:29get to your dirty clothes.
14:31That is why soap
14:32seems to work
14:33so poorly
14:34in hard water.
14:35You are not getting
14:37less soap.
14:38Your soap is being
14:38captured before
14:39it can do its job.
14:41The washing soda
14:42goes in
14:43and ties up
14:43those minerals
14:44so they cannot interfere,
14:46and now your soap
14:47is free
14:48to actually clean.
14:49It also cuts
14:50the grease itself.
14:52It is the thing
14:53that makes
14:53the whole mixture
14:54work in a real house
14:56with real water,
14:57and the borax
14:58rounds it out.
15:00It helps with odor,
15:01it brightens,
15:02and it makes
15:03the whole business
15:04work a bit better
15:05than it would without.
15:06So there is
15:07your mixture,
15:08a cleaner,
15:09a helper that clears
15:10the way for the cleaner,
15:11and a finisher.
15:13Three things,
15:14and now you know
15:15what each one is for.
15:17And what did it cost you?
15:18The washing soda
15:19and the borax
15:20are cheap,
15:21and a box of each
15:22lasts a very long time.
15:25And the soap,
15:26the soap that is doing
15:27the actual cleaning
15:28in that mix,
15:30cost you nothing at all
15:31because it was slivers
15:33you were going to put
15:34in the trash.
15:35That is the whole thing
15:36right there.
15:37You are washing
15:38your family's clothes
15:40with the scraps
15:41you used to throw away.
15:42Now let me give you
15:44the honest cautions
15:45because I never
15:46hand you a tool
15:47without telling you
15:48where the sharp edge is.
15:50Great a plain soap.
15:52The simpler,
15:53the better.
15:54A plain bar soap,
15:55the old-fashioned kind,
15:57is what you want.
15:58The fancy modern bars
16:00with a great deal
16:01of cream and oil
16:02and lotion in them
16:03do not dissolve as well,
16:05and they can leave
16:06a film in your wash.
16:07If the bar feels greasy
16:09and moisturizing,
16:11it is a fine soap
16:12for your skin
16:13and a poor one
16:14for your laundry.
16:16Save that one
16:16for the soap bag
16:17in the shower
16:18and grate the plain one
16:20for the wash.
16:21Wear a bit of care
16:22when you grate.
16:24Fine soap dust
16:25in the air
16:25will set you sneezing
16:27and it does not
16:28do your lungs any good.
16:29So grate it near
16:31an open window
16:32and do not put your face
16:33right down over it,
16:35and if you are grating
16:36a great deal of it,
16:37a mask over your nose
16:39and mouth
16:39is not a foolish thing.
16:41And borax wants respect.
16:44It is not a fierce poison,
16:46but it is not food either,
16:48and it should be kept up
16:50out of the reach
16:50of children and pets,
16:52the same as any cleaning thing
16:54in your house.
16:55Label the jar
16:56so nobody mistakes it.
16:58Common sense,
16:59and I will not lecture you further.
17:01Keep a separate grater for this,
17:03or wash it very well after.
17:05A grater that has had soap on it
17:08will surprise your family
17:09in an unwelcome way
17:11when it next meets
17:12a block of cheese,
17:13and you will only make
17:15that mistake one time.
17:17Now, one more small use,
17:19and this one my grandmother
17:21swore by.
17:22A dry bar of soap,
17:23or a stub of one,
17:25rubbed along the edge
17:26of a drawer that sticks,
17:28or along the runner
17:29of a window that will not slide,
17:31or on a screw
17:32before you drive it
17:33into hard wood,
17:34will make the whole thing
17:36move sweet and easy.
17:38Soap is a lubricant,
17:39and a dry one,
17:41and it does not gum up
17:42the way an oil does.
17:44That is a hundred-year-old trick,
17:46and it works this minute.
17:48And the screw is the one
17:49worth remembering,
17:51because any man
17:52who has ever driven a screw
17:53into good hard oak
17:55knows the misery of it.
17:56The wood grips that screw
17:59and fights it every turn,
18:00and you lean on the driver,
18:03and the head chews out,
18:04and you are left
18:05with a ruined screw
18:06standing half-proud
18:08of the wood.
18:09So you take your soap stub,
18:11and you rub it well
18:12along the threads
18:13before you start,
18:14and that screw will turn in
18:16like it was going into butter,
18:18and the head will not strip,
18:20and your wrist will thank you.
18:21It cost you a scrap of soap
18:23you were going to throw away.
18:26Every old carpenter
18:27I ever knew
18:28kept a stub of soap
18:29in his apron pocket
18:30for exactly that,
18:32and now you know why.
18:33Now, who profits from you
18:36throwing away that sliver?
18:37And I want to be careful,
18:39because I am not telling you
18:40there is a scheme,
18:42some room of men
18:43wanting your soap scraps
18:44in the bin.
18:45It is quieter than that,
18:47and it needs no plotting at all.
18:50If you throw away
18:51a seventh of every bar,
18:53then you buy
18:54a seventh more soap
18:55than you need forever.
18:57Nobody had to arrange that.
18:59Nobody has to encourage it.
19:01It simply happens on its own,
19:03quietly,
19:04in every house in the country,
19:06and the only one who loses
19:07is you,
19:08and you lose so slowly
19:10you never feel it,
19:12and nobody makes a dollar
19:13teaching you
19:14to put a sliver
19:15in an old sock.
19:17So the knowing of it
19:18just grew over
19:20like a path nobody walks.
19:22Well, let us walk it again.
19:25Here is what I would ask of you.
19:27Go get an old sock,
19:29one that has lost its partner.
19:31Put it under your sink,
19:33or hang it by the shower.
19:34And the next time
19:35a bar of soap wears down
19:37to that useless little sliver,
19:39do not throw it out.
19:41Drop it in the sock.
19:43That is all.
19:45One small change,
19:46and you will never
19:47throw soap away again
19:49as long as you live.
19:51And then come down
19:52to the comments
19:53and tell me.
19:54Tell me what your grandmother
19:56did with her soap scraps,
19:58because I know
19:59some of you remember,
20:00and every one of those
20:02little household methods
20:03is a piece of knowing
20:05that vanishes for good
20:07when nobody says it out loud.
20:09And the next time
20:10we sit down together,
20:12I am finally paying off
20:14a promise I have made you
20:15five times now,
20:16and I am ashamed
20:18it has taken this long.
20:19There is a reason
20:21an old farmhouse
20:22holds its heat
20:23through a bitter winter night
20:24while the new house next door
20:26goes cold before morning.
20:28It is not luck.
20:30It is not a better furnace.
20:32It is not magic.
20:34It is built right into the walls,
20:37and I have walked past it
20:38my whole life
20:40without thinking about it,
20:41and I am going to show you
20:43the whole of it.
20:45That one is next,
20:46and no more delays.
20:48So keep a sock by the sink,
20:51score your slivers
20:52and press them into a new bar,
20:54dissolve them into a jelly,
20:56grate the plain ones
20:57into laundry soap,
20:59and rub a stub
21:00on a sticking drawer.
21:02The people who built this country
21:04with their hands knew that,
21:06and we are only just starting
21:08to remember it.
Comments