hvala wrote:
yes but i never noticed theres something wrong with my skin after using it...sodium is not in so big percentage in wood ash, also people use to cook it, i dont know what happens than but guess it reduces caustic effect....
in old times there was no much options to get substances with cleaning effects, my family also used to make this sopa from lard but for me its stupid to kill animal just to clean yourself also i dont keep domestic animals so for me wood ash is still option.....
I think the key is dilution, not the content in the ash itself. If you add 1 teaspoon of ash to 1 liter of water, you will get one result. Mix 1:1, something completely different and, possibly, dangerous. Sorry, but without including a recipe, I think your advice could be dangerous.
I have made lye soap a couple of times just for the sake of doing something new, not as an ongoing practice. Lots of advice on the web on how to do this but the water was allowed to seep through the ash and the concentration (supposedly, didn't try it

) would have been caustic.
If you object to using animal products (fats) to make soap, vegetable fats can, apparently be substituted (haven't tried this myself).