How to carry soap in the field.

[Carbon 6]

How to carry soap in the field.
This idea is not my own, it's borrowed from Youtube and works extremely well.

To easily and conveniently carry soap in the field, take a paper towel and lay it out flat. Then pour on some liquid soap (I use dawn dish soap). Smooth out the soap and fold the towel up so that you get complete even coverage, and absorption. Then unfold the towel and hang to air dry.
When dry cut the towel into approximately 1.5x 2 inch squares. They can be whatever size you want, 1.5x2 inch just works well for me (it fits a Altoids mini tin). I then place the squares in a small Altoids mini tin for transport and safe keeping. The tin easily fits in my shooting bag.
When you need to wash your hands, just take out one square and rub it into your already wet hands, they will lather up nicely. This is a great way to carry your favorite liquid soap without the hassle or worries of a liquid container.

For the more period correct crowd, you could easy adapt the same principle to linen cloth that has been made damp and rubbed with a bar of lye or castile soap then allowed to dry.

Give it a try.

 

[BrownBear]

Interesting and looks effective.

I have no belief that my method is correct, but I learned it from an ancient bud and figure I'm close enough to ancient myself that I have no reason to change. I just warm bar soap of my choice till it's a little soft, open a bullet mold and use my fingers to push some soap into one half of the mold or the other. It wants to stick sometimes, so if that bothers you, lay a piece of plastic wrap over the mold half before pushing in the soap. In about 10 minutes flat I end up with a bunch of little "half rounds" of soap, and I wrap one or two into an old rag I can use for a "wash cloth." Never even know it's in the bottom of my haversack.

 

[Eutycus]

We did a recent thread on tins. Is everything kept in tins? How many of these tins are carried in a shooters bag? But hey I like your idea even if you did "borrow" it from YouTube.

 

[jackley]

I make my own lye soap, so my bars are bigger then little pieces of paper towels or half roundball size. I take brown paper bags from the store and with an iron [not moms good one the second time] I got from Goodwill and melt bees wax into the paper so I have waxed paper to wrap meat, soap or whatever in and tie with linen string. I let the soap dry for a bit before wrapping, but the soap I make doesn't get soft like boughten kinds. I have wrapped it up right away if in a hurry with no problems.

Jerry

 

[Carbon 6]

Guys, this isn't meant to be historic or period correct, it's just really effective and convenient. You can carry it without really knowing you have it. and it doesn't make a mess. I use a tin to store them in because I can't stand ziplock bags. I use an Altoids mini tin for storage but, you could just as easily use a cap tin.
It's a minimalist approach, an alternative to carrying a bulky bar of soap that gets wet and slimy after you use it. These are disposable and biodegradable. They require very little water to be effective. I can wash my hands, clean my gun or whatever in a passing creek or use a bottle of water or canteen. and I won't deprive myself of all my water either.

It might sound "wonky" at first, but once you try it, you'll

 

[Rifleman1776]

Good idea.