The guy at the hardware store where I buy my lye showed me a nasty wound on his arm he got from splashing lye drain cleaner on his arm. You don’t have to get hurt like that from lye. He didn’t know what my chemistry teacher taught me, so he didn’t take care of it properly. It’s very easy to understand. Lye is a kind of chemical called a “base.” It’s a very strong base and can eat at skin like a strong acid can. But you don’t have to be afraid. Bases and acids instantly neutralize or “kill” each other, so just keep an acid like vinegar or lemon juice on hand to rub onto skin that got lye or lye mixture on it. Chlorine bleach is another base and has the same slippery feel lye does. (Yes, I’ve gotten it on my hands and no, they didn’t fall off. ) The vinegar will remove that slipperiness because it turns the base into something as harmless as water. I get little splatters of lye on my hands and forearms sometimes. I keep a sponge soaked with vinegar on the counter by my sink and wipe down my skin when I feel a splash.

Lye and water come together with a chemical reaction that releases a lot of heat energy. You always want to add the lye granules to the water, not the other way around. The water body you measured out is big enough to absorb the heat without bursting into steam. It just gets very warm. If you try to pour the water into the dry lye, the tiny amount of water that first touches the lye won’t be big enough and it WILL burst into a cloud of poison-carrying steam. Please don’t experiment with this!

If you like, you can take safety precautions:
1. Mix the lye into the water in an area with good ventilation. My kitchen fan vents outdoors so I do it under the fan with it turned on high.
2. Wear long sleeves or rubber gloves. If you get enough lye on your sleeve to wet it, remove it immediately and use the vinegar. Put the shirt where kids and pets can’t get to it.
2. If you don’t wear gloves or sleeves, keep that vinegar or lemon juice handy.
3. If you wear glasses, wonderful. If you don’t, consider safety glasses or be very careful not to splash in your face.
4. This might not seem obvious, but if you have to leave the lye water unattended, put a not on it, saying what it is. It will look like innocent water and may get mixed in with food.
I’m not at all afraid of handling lye, even after what happened to my great-uncle but I do treat it with respect and I’ve never been hurt or hurt anyone else.

The only problem I find is that the smell is a bit off. I wonder if it’s because my lard was at least 6 months old! I’m hoping the smell will fade soon. Otherwise I may re-cook it and add lots of fragrance oil and use as household liquid soap.

Btw, I like your choice of mold too.