blue soap, noun phrase

Origin:
Shortened form of blue mottled soap.
A coarse, hard, blue-marbled soap used in both kitchen and laundry, made by stirring a mixture of washing blue, caustic soda, and starch into the cooling soap; blue mottled.
Note:
Originally made from animal fat and plant lye. See also ganna.
1956 A. La Guma in New Age 27 Sept. 6Once a week is washing day. A scrap of hard blue soap and a scrubbing brush are issued, and everybody gets down at the ditch across the middle of the yard to do their clothes.
1963 A. Fugard Blood Knot (1968) 100Her mother did washing. Connie used to buy blue soap from the Chinaman on the corner.
1975 E. Prov. Herald 5 July 9Self-raising flour, yeast, long bars of blue soap and washing powder.
1976 M. Van Biljon in Sunday Times 16 May (Mag. Sect.) 4Women who could still make a cake of blue soap, smooth as marble, delicately mottled and veined with blue.
1982 J. Davids in Chapman & Dangor Voices from Within 98My words slid like a ball of hard blue soap into the tub to be grabbed and used by you to rub the clothes.
1985 L. Sampson in Style Feb. 103Ag, the blue soap you get nowadays. It isn’t soap at all.
1988 A. Dangor in Bunn & Taylor From S. Afr. 198She had long ago stopped using the harsh, carbolic-based Blue soap so commonly used in the township.
A coarse, hard, blue-marbled soap used in both kitchen and laundry, made by stirring a mixture of washing blue, caustic soda, and starch into the cooling soap; blue mottled.
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19561988

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