How to make soap in Dwarf Fortress

Much like any living being, the dwarves you oversee in Dwarf Fortress also require a bath every now and then. But to clean them successfully in the game, you will need to provide them with the most important item used for personal hygiene — soap. Unfortunately, the tutorial and the tips within don’t exactly show how you can make soap in Dwarf Fortress. Luckily, we figured it out, so all you’ll need to do is keep reading on to find out the entire process.

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Dwarf Fortress soap crafting guide — resources required and how to make it

To make soap, you will need to gather two specific resources: lye and tallow. After you’ve collected both items, you’ll be able to use them at the Soap Maker’s Workshop to create the all-important cleaning item.

You can obtain lye by first collecting any type of wood and using it to make ash at a Wood Furnace. Once the ash has been acquired, you can then bring it to an Ashery, where you’ll simply have to add a new task to turn it into lye.

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On the other hand, the process of making tallow is relatively more complicated than its counterpart. To acquire this resource, you will need to butcher an animal initially in order to get the fat that it contains.

Before you can slaughter an animal, however, you’ll first have to designate a specific creature for butchering, which can be done through the citizen information menu, which can be opened by clicking the dwarf icon on the bottom left side of your screen or by simply pressing the “U” key.

Then, under the Creatures tab, head over to the Pets/Livestock category and click on the Butcher’s Knife icon next to one of the animals that you have. When you click it, the status next to it will change to “Ready for slaughter.” You can then add a task in your Butcher’s Shop to slaughter the animal you previously selected.

One of the materials you’ll gain from butchering livestock is fat, which you’ll need to render in a Kitchen. After it’s been rendered and turned into tallow, you’ll be able to combine it with ash in a Soap Maker’s Workshop to turn it into soap.