576. Mottled Soap Balls

576.    Mottled Soap Balls. Cut the soap (recently prepared, and not too dry) into dice, or small square pieces, roll them in colored powder (see below), and then mould them into balls by powerful pressure, observing to mix the colors as little as possible.

The colors usually employed, and which should be in very fine powder, are: Blu -indigo, powder-blue, or smalts. Green - powder-blue and bright yellow-ochre. Orange -yellow deepened with a little red. Red -red bole, sesquioxide of iron, or jeweler's rouge. Yellow - bright yellow-ochre, or Dutch pink.

By varying the shade of color, which is done by diluting it with a little farina or chalk, and by using soap-dice separately coated with two or more colors, " mottled savonettes " of any color, or mixture of colors, may be produced at will.

577. Mercurial Soap

577.    Mercurial Soap. Take of corrosive sublimate (crushed small), 1 drachm; rectified spirit (to dissolve, say) 1 fluid ounce; white Castile soap (in powder), 4 ounces; beat them to a uniform mass in a wedgwood-ware mortar, adding a few drops of attar of roses, or of a mixture of the oils of cassia and bitter almonds. Nothing metallic must touch it. This is the " sapo hy-drargyri bichloridi" of medical writers. The above has been recommended in various skin diseases, including itch; also as " Savon An-tisyphilitique," under which name it is often sold.

578. Sulphur Soap; Sulphuretted Soap

578.      Sulphur Soap; Sulphuretted Soap. Take 1/2 pound white curd or Castile soap (recent); 1 ounce best flowers of sulphur (levigated); 1 fluid ounce rectified spirit (strongly colored with alkanet); and sufficient attar of roses to strongly scent the mass. Beat the whole together, to a smooth paste, in a marble or wedgwood ware mortar. This is Sir H. Marsh's formula. Recommended in itch, and various other skin diseases. It is particularly serviceable as a common toilet soap, to persons troubled with slight cutaneous eruptions. Its daily use tends to render the skin fair and smooth. The spirit and coloring may be omitted at will; and, as a toilet soap, only half the above quantity of sulphur is amply sufficient.

579. Caution in using Medicated Soaps

579.      Caution in using Medicated Soaps. Before using mercurial or sulphur soap, finger-rings, ear-rings, and bracelets of gold, etc., should be removed, and not replaced until some short time after the hands have become quite dry; as otherwise they will be tarnished, and even blackened and corroded. The same applies to all other cosmetics containing the same mineral ingredients.

580. Whale-oil Soap to Destroy Insects

580.    Whale-oil Soap to Destroy Insects. Render common lye caustic, by boiling it at full strength on quicklime; then take the lye and boil it with as much whale-oil foot as it will saponify (change to soap), pour off into moulds, and, when cold, it is tolerably hard. Whale-oil foot is the sediment produced in refining whale oil.

581. Carbolic Acid Soap

581.    Carbolic Acid Soap. Take freshly prepared cocoanut-oil soap, 150 parts, and fuse;

then add a solution of alcohol, 10 parts; carbolic acid, 6 parts; caustic potassa, 2 parts; oil of lemon, 1 part; and mix with stirring. To be poured into moulds.