Also soft-soap. [f. SOFT a.]
1. A smeary, semi-liquid soap, made with potash lye; potash soap.
1634. in Rymer Fœdera (1732), XIX. 567/1. That no soft Soap be sold … for above three pence the pound.
1641. Short Relation conc. Soap-Business, 4. To make soft soape with Berilla.
1728. Chambers, Cycl., s.v. Soap, The Soft Soap … is either White or Green.
1812. Sir H. Davy, Chem. Philos., 331. Potassa enters into the composition of soft soap.
1883. Specif. Alnwick & Cornhill Rlwy., 11. In drilling the holes no oil is to be used, but only soft soap and water.
b. With pl. A make or kind of this.
1783. Encycl. Brit. (ed. 2), X. 8196/2. In soft or liquid soaps,… cheaper oils are employed.
1857. Miller, Elem. Chem., Org., vi. § 2. 371. The base … of the soft soaps is potash.
1879. Cassell’s Techn. Educ., I. 357/2. The hard, the soft, and the marine soaps.
2. slang. Flattery; blarney; ‘soft sawder.’
1848. Bartlett, Dict. Amer., 320. Soft soap. Flattery; blarney. A vulgar phrase, though much used.
1861. Hughes, Tom Brown at Oxf., xxxiii. He and I are great chums, and a little soft soap will go a long way with him.
1900. Delannoy, £19,000, xxxix. 296. ‘Mrs. Depew, you’re the most sensible woman I’ve ever met.’
‘None of your soft-soap, now!’
