Not too long ago I picked up some vintage kitchen tools at a local estate auction. The lot boxes were filled with tools that were easy for me to recognize as well as a few items of which I really had no idea. One such item looked like a small, wire basket with a long handle. It was too large and the holes were to big for it to be a tea strainer and I was curious as to its use.
I actually had several of these in the boxes I bought and pulled out a couple for my own collection and took the rest to our booth at Verona Antiques. I started searching online trying to find out the purpose and function of the metal tool. I put in this description and that description and searched dozens of images until finally I found the answer. The tool is a vintage soap saver which were patented in 1875 and produced until about 1900, at least according to one source I read. On another site, there was one for sale that said it had a date of 1940 on it. The purpose of this vintage tool was to hold slivers from larger bars of soap so as not to waste even the smallest amount. The soap keeper was a perfect way to collect those little pieces and be able to use them. The thrifty housewife would simply swish the soap saver around in the water, holding it by the handle, to distribute the soap either for washing dishes or clothes by hand.
My great grandma Starnes, who raised a family during the Depression Era never wasted anything but I don't remember her having a soap saver. I do, however, remember visiting her and seeing little slivers of soap that she collected in an old pair of hose. Once she had collected a good many of these slivers, she would melt them in old tuna cans that she had cleaned out and saved for that purpose. I remember using those round bars of melted soap made from various pieces of larger bars when I would bathe at Grandma's house. We live in a society of so much waste today that most of us just toss those end pieces but there was a time when that wasn't the case.
 |
| Wire, vintage soap saver of rectangular design. The metal ring moves up the handle and the wire basket then opens to hold small pieces of soap. |
 |
| This round soap saver is designed to simply squeeze to open. It is discolored with remnants of what is most likely lye soap around the wire mesh. |