How To Make Soaproot Brushes

Soaproot Plants

Soaproot, a member of the onion family, was harvested by the Ohlone people with a digging stick from hillsides each winter. Soaproot provided food, soap, glue, medicine, brushes, and a potent fish poison.

The brushes were used for brushing hair, as scrubbers for cooking baskets, and for general cleaning. They were made from the dry, outer layers of the soaproot, laid so that the natural curvature of their bases nested. I saw some on display and thought I’d like to give soaproot brush making a try!

Dug up plant

I first found some areas near us where the plants grow and dug up some of the larger ones between November and January. They can be difficult to dig up whole. I would recommend finding those in loose, damp soil, and using a long bladed spade, digging around the plant before digging under it and prying up. If the hairs and bulb are damaged they will not be very usefull. Try to find plants with long hairs, the size of the plant above ground is indicative of the size below ground, but there will be some surprises.

 

 

 

 

The plants were then cleaned . A plastic handled wire brush was used to help clean the dirt out of the long hairs and to untangle them to some extent.

Cleaning the plant and wire brush

The soaproot hair portion was separated from the bulb and set out to dry,

Drying out the brush hairs

and the soaproot bulbs were boiled for along time until they were soft,

Boiling the bulbs

at which time they were separated, and placed in a colander , and scraped vigorously against the colander wall

Mashing the separated bulbs in a colander

until the white sticky paste oozed out.

Paste for handle making oozing out

The paste

The paste

was saved and paced in the refridgerator. Note: remember to lable the paste container or there is a good chance your spouse will toss it out! I know from experience.

The next step is to further clean and dry the hairs and place them in small bundles with the hairs in the same direction and to tie these together. I used a long needle and strong thread. To be authentic, you might use natural materials like reed strips. The bundles can be of any length and diameter one wishes, depending on the intended use and type of handle to be used.

Tying the brush

The final step is to coat the handle part of the bundles with many (5 to 10 or more) coats of the paste brushed on, in a manner that covers the ties.

Plant, brush with paste handle, and brush before paste handle

The paste in a container can be thickened by being left out to dry for a time.  Left in the sun each coat will dry and turn hard in a day and the finished brush could look like this.

Brush with paste handle .One of the problems with the handles of brushes coated with soaproot paste was that they would become soft when wet. To get around this, some tribes coated the bundled hairs with pine tree pitch (sap) that had a bit of charcoal dust added in. This provided a waterproof handle. I scavenged some oozing and dried pine sap Pine sap pieces to be melted

and heated it in a can raised in the water on our oven top.

Heating the pine sap

I strained out the debris

Straining the sap

and quickly coated the hairs with a layer of sap. I repeated this with another layer of sap that had some charcoal dust sprinkled in .

Brush with sap and charcoal handle

This was messy and cumbersome. I found that just heating the can full of sap with a hair dryer worked much better. The hair dryer could also be used to spread and soften the sap on the handle so it could be molded into an attractive shape.

Being a potter, I experimented with adding different substances available from ceramic supply stores to the hot sap mix and made red handles with red iron oxide powder, a speckled earthtone handle by adding 30 mesh sand and so on.

Brush with pine sap and sand in handle

Pine sap with red iron oxide and another with yellow ochre

However, the downside with the sap handles is that, while they are waterproof, in the sun or heat they will slowly change shape to match whatever the are resting on. A little more heat from the hair dryer and they could be reshaped. There is probably a better ratio and additive to lessen this problem.

I enjoyed making the brushes. I learned some history and produced some nice looking, practical, and truly unique hand made gifts. Good luck and give it a shot!