The manufacturer can best judge the brand of soaps he desires to manufacture, and much of his success depends upon the name, package, shape, color or perfume of a cake of soap. It is the consumer whom he must please and many of the large selling brands upon the market today owe their success to the above mentioned details. The great majority of consumers of soap know very little concerning soap, except the fact that it washes or has a pleasant odor or looks pretty, and the manufacturer of soap must study these phases of the subject even more carefully than the making of the soap itself.
For a matter of convenience we will classify soap under three general divisions:
I. Laundry soaps, including chip soaps, soap powders and scouring soaps.
II. Toilet soaps, including floating soap, castile soap, liquid soap, shaving soap, etc.
The most popular household soap is laundry soap. A tremendous amount of this soap is consumed each day in this country, and it is by far manufactured in larger quantities than any other soap. It is also a soap which must be sold cheaper than any other soap that enters the home.
The consumers of laundry soap have been educated to use a full boiled settled rosin soap and to make a good article at a price this method should be carried out, as it is the one most advisable to use. The composition of the fats entering into the soap depends upon the market price of these, and it is not advisable to keep to one formula in the manufacture of laundry soap, but rather to adjust the various fatty ingredients to obtain the desired results with the cheapest material that can be purchased. It is impossible to use a good grade of fats and make a profit upon laundry soap at the price at which it must be retailed. The manufacturer of this grade of soap must look to the by-product, glycerine, for his profit and he is fortunate indeed if he realizes the entire benefit of this and still produces a superior piece of laundry soap.
It is advantageous at times to make a laundry soap by a method other than the full boiled settled soap procedure as previously outlined. This is especially the condition in making a naphtha soap, in which is incorporated naphtha, which is very volatile and some of the well known manufacturers of this class of soap have adopted this process entirely. A laundry soap containing rosin cannot be advantageously made by the cold process, as the soap thus made grains during saponification and drops a portion of the lye and filling materials. By making a semi-boiled soap this objection is overcome. The half boiled process differs from the cold process by uniting the fats and alkalis at a higher temperature.