Eri silk weavers in Meghalaya use locally made soap called ‘Sabon Lieh’ to wash the Eri Silk cocoons.

The soap is scraped into smaller pieces and added into boiling water to create an alkaline solution that is used to wash the cocoons tied in a muslin cloth.

This process is known as degumming and it is carried out to remove sericin; a sticky substance produced by the silkworm.