All About Soap

By Paula Kvarfordt

During any type of disaster one of the biggest challenges is cleanliness. Disease and sickness are spread because of lack of ability to wash hands and dispose of garbage and waste.

It is so important to keep our hands clean, have the ability to wash clothing and keep our area of living clean from refuse, waste and garbage.

Soap is a great item to add to your storage. It is a great morale booster and is one of the top 10 things on barter lists. It is also one of the top 10 things to disappear in a disaster.

There are soaps for different purposes:

Hand Soap

Shampoo

Dish Soap

Laundry Soap

Cleaners for your house

HAND SOAP:

When you purchase hand soap, make sure you buy the antibacterial soap.

Your supplies need to include one bar of soap per person per month.

Before you use your bars of soap, let them dry out to last longer.

When you get down to slivers of soap left. Put them in a nylon sock, tie the end shut and you will have the best hand, foot, elbow and etc scrubber!

DISH SOAP:

You need the basics to keep your dishes clean, such as dish soap, dish cloths, dish towels, a drainer, SOS pads, and scrubbers.

You need enough dish cloths to trade them everyday. Dish clothes and sponges harbor all kinds of things that will make you sick. I read a report that said many people who think they have the flu often, in reality are having small cases of food poisoning from the dish clothes they do their dishes with. They leave them out and use them for several days. What would happen if you left bits and pieces of food out and they were dampish then you ate them after several days. Wash your cloths at the end of each day!

If you do not have hot water, you will need some type of pot that can heat water over a fire. No your kitchen pots unless they are specifically designed for fire will not work. Direct fire heating is much hotter than your stove.

If you can’t use your sink you will need two dish pan’s, one for rinsing and one for washing.

As for amounts for dish soap. You will use more than you do if you currently use a dishwasher.

Wash your dishes for one day. All of them, make note of how much dish soap you use and times that by 30. The general rule is you need one small bottle of dish soap per month per person. If you are cooking with a fire, you will use more dish soap than you do now cooking with your stove.

LAUNDRY SOAP:

We wash our clothes a lot. In a crisis they could be washed less often. You will need supplies to wash your clothing by hand if we didn’t have electricity. Generations past used rocks then washboards. You will need a big tub to wash in and something else to rinse in. The fine things such as undies and garments are the easiest to wash. Using a plunger works much like a washing machine does....you would need to enlist several people to do this, because it takes a lot of muscles!

Soap–get antibacterial

Washboard

Plunger

Laundry Soap (homemade or commercial)

Clorox

If you have a baby you will need some type of diaper pail once your disposables run out.

CLEANERS FOR YOUR HOUSE:

Look at the items you use to clean your home with. Every month add a few of these to your storage. Look to see what cleaners can do several jobs so you don’t have to store as many supplies. You will also need rags, buckets etc.

Another thing to have a back up of is a good broom. If you can’t vacuum your home, you would have to sweep your carpets.

Keeping clean with limited water in a crisis

Heat water in a large kettle on cook stove

Take out what water is needed for dishes and to keep counters clean for the day

Reserve one cup of water for brushing teeth

Reserve another quart for each person to wash their hands through the day.

Water that is used for rinse water for the dishes can be used to bath children and wash faces. Any extra used to flush potties.

Water that has been used to wash dishes can be used to mop floors or saved to flush the potty if you are able to use it.

You can also purify it to water plants and gardens.

Before mopping the floor use some spic and span to cut the grease

Add a dash of Clorox to bucket before flushing the toilet.