# Prepping / Emergency Preparedness > General Emergency Preparedness >  Medical Emergency Survival - Soap

## Survival101

A daily shower with hot water and soap is ideal, but you can stay clean without this luxury. Use a cloth and soapy water to wash yourself. Pay special attention to the feet, armpits, crotch, hands, and hair as these are prime areas for infestation and infection. If water is scarce, take an "air" bath. Remove as much of your clothing as practical and expose your body to the sun and air for at least 1 hour. Be careful not to sunburn.
If you don't have soap, use ashes or sand, or make soap from animal fat and wood ashes, if your situation allows.

*To make soap:*
• Extract grease from animal fat by cutting the fat into small pieces and cooking them in a pot.
• Add enough water to the pot to keep the fat from sticking as it cooks.
Cook the fat slowly, stirring frequently.
• After the fat is rendered, pour the grease into a container to harden.
• Place ashes in a container with a spout near the bottom.
• Pour water over the ashes and collect the liquid that drips out of the spout in a separate container. This liquid is the potash or lye. Another way to get the lye is to pour the slurry (the mixture of ashes and water) through a straining cloth.
• In a cooking pot, mix two parts grease to one part potash.
• Place this mixture over a fire and boil it until it thickens.
• After the mixture--the soap--cools, you can use it in the semiliquid state directly from the pot. You can also pour it into a pan, allow it to harden, and cut it into bars for later use.

Credit: Jason Richards. He’ s the founder of Family Survival Course. I linked a review under Survival Apocalypse Recipes - Guide.

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## welderguy

Good info, thanks. when you get a minute could ya go to the introduction section and tell us about yourself.

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## GreatUsername

Any citation for this info? It's quality stuff, but unless you wrote it yourself (in which case you should link us to your website or some such, if the mods okay that) it would be good to tell us the source. Thanks for posting!

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## LFM

Making soap link

http://www.rureadysurvival.com/Tips-Tricks.html

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## crashdive123

Hey Survival101 - if you are going to copy and paste the words of others it is always prudent to provide a source.  Here's an example.....




> pla·gia·rizedpla·gia·riz·ing
> 
> Definition of PLAGIARIZE
> 
> transitive verb
> : to steal and pass off (the ideas or words of another) as one's own : use (another's production) without crediting the source


  Source:  http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/plagiarize

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## Survival101

> Any citation for this info? It's quality stuff, but unless you wrote it yourself (in which case you should link us to your website or some such, if the mods okay that) it would be good to tell us the source. Thanks for posting!


Credit: Jason Richards. He’ s the founder of Family Survival Course. I linked a review under Survival Apocalypse Recipes - Guide.

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## crashdive123

Looks like Mr. Richards may have some splainin to do since at least the first part of your post is right out of an Army publication.

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## hunter63

> A daily shower with hot water and soap is ideal, but you can stay clean without this luxury. Use a cloth and soapy water to wash yourself. Pay special attention to the feet, armpits, crotch, hands, and hair as these are prime areas for infestation and infection. If water is scarce, take an "air" bath. Remove as much of your clothing as practical and expose your body to the sun and air for at least 1 hour. Be careful not to sunburn......................


DW calls that a PTA bath....Pits, teats, a$$.....and is very common.....when the kids were small they thought it was fun.......till you got to the "Mom I can't reach my butte....help"

If you work it right you can do it in a bowl of water.....
Use Ivory soap...it floats... (of course if it's a river, it might float away).....and is useful for cleaning muzzle loaders as well as most any thing.

Making soap in the wild might be tough as most game meat is very lean, not sure how it would work as apposed to lard, (pig).....
Rivers and streams are very cold....try to find a spot on a corner, where the shallow water slows down.......keep out of sight of passing canoes....you will scare the boaters and have to answer to being a possible "Big foot"   or big, what ever.

My source is personnel experiance, and will tell you that jumping into a deep spot in a trout stream, comes very close to cold enought to stop your heart....and the toe walk back to the bank is possible.

BTW, these tips you are offering?....have you tried any yet?...or just passing on others ideas?

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## Delta 5168

While you're taking a "sun" bath, hang up those t-shirts, drawers and socks so the sun can do some disinfecting on them, too.  If the weather is right, you can warm up a basin of water in the sun shine if for some reason you can't have a fire.  Good opportunity to hang sleeping bags and other equipment out to dry and freshen.

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