Up until the 1850s, when the general store started stocking provisions, folks made most of their household supplies themselves, including lye soap. Three ingredients went into the making of lye soap: lard, lye, and lots of hard work.

Lard was rendered and saved for soap-making from the annual hog kill that took place at the time of the first hard frost in autumn. Lye was made from the ashes left over from the wood stoves. (Most people kept a wooden bin with a side spigot just outside the house, into which they'd dump their ashes. When it came time to make lye soap, they poured water through the ashes and siphoned off the liquid lye.) The third ingredient of lye soap had to be supplied by a pair of hard working hands.

Lye is an extremely caustic agent, so the soap makers had to be careful to have just the right concentration. Too much lye would cause the soap to burn the skin, and too little would keep the soap from hardening. An old wives' tale held that lye was at the proper strength when depositing a floating egg into the mixture revealed only its tip.

To make lye soap, lard and lye were mixed together over an open fire, and stirred for hours with a long-handled paddle. It is said that when the paddle stuck straight up, the soap was ready. Lye soap was then poured into a metal pan and allowed to dry and harden; a process that could take from two weeks to one month. After the lye soap hardened, it was cut into smaller bars for everyday use. People used lye soap to clean everything from their faces to their laundry. Today, many people still like to buy and use original lye soap.

Lye soap can be purchased from soap companies, which sell their product in specialty bath shops or over the Internet. Many people tout the benefits of lye soap; it is a natural product, and because soap makers have perfected the level of lye to add, it can be a very gentle soap. Current lye soap manufacturers have substituted different types of oil for lard. Fragrances are added, and sometimes natural oils such as aloe, jojoba, or coconut, which soothe the skin. Fans of lye soap also say that it can help reduce the itching caused by insect bites. Nostalgia is another reason why people like lye soap. Some enjoy homemade lye for the novelty of using the same rugged brown soap that their Great-Great-grandparents used so many years ago.