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  1. DirtyKnuckles

    How to calculate essential oil content for a batch?

    My tallow and olive oil totals 1094 grams, and it is telling me to use approximately 22 grams of the essential oil for a pretty light (2%) usage. Does this sound about right to you?
  2. DirtyKnuckles

    How to calculate essential oil content for a batch?

    I am making another batch of 50/50 deer tallow and olive oil soap lye soap but have decided to get "fancy" by adding some Make Market Cedarwood essential oils that I picked up on a whim at my local Michael's shop. I have tried reading people's experience in their blogs, but some of them seem...
  3. DirtyKnuckles

    Soap too soft

    Ah, ok. I will just lay some plastic wrap over it and stash it on a shelf for now. Thanks.
  4. DirtyKnuckles

    Soap too soft

    Recipe: 500 g olive oil 64 g lye crystals 180 g water 40 grams deer tallow lye soap bits, grated fine (Never one to waste any) **edit** 6% superfatting I used the lye calculator from Bramble Berry, but when I rechecked this morning, their calculator said 144 grams of water. I doubt their...
  5. DirtyKnuckles

    When interests collide...falconry and soap

    So I went to visit a friend and fly hawks on wild desert jackrabbits and I brought her a couple bars of deer tallow lye soap. I figured a rough and ready outdoorsperson like her would be a good candidate for a serious soap, and I was right. At the end of the day our hands were well annointed...
  6. DirtyKnuckles

    Grubbly bits....what to do?

    I only give away my first run products, and then only after I have used the first bar on myself as guinea pig. As for a confetti/grubbly bits soap, that'll be all for me anyway since it will be such a small batch.
  7. DirtyKnuckles

    Twelve dollar soap??

    All you gotta do is throw in b.s. terms like "detoxifying" and the suckers will line up, cash in hand, DEMANDING high prices. Extra points for fad ingredients of the day like tea tree oils, coconut oils, or green tea and you are pressing all their buttons at once. It's all PT Barnum.
  8. DirtyKnuckles

    Confetti Confessional

    I found my last batch of deer tallow/lye soap to be far too grainy and brittle for my preferences. The soap works and it works GREAT. But it lacks ease of use when bars shatter when dropped. I took the last 262 grams of shards and ran them through the finest cheese grater I had, creating...
  9. DirtyKnuckles

    Grubbly bits....what to do?

    So, over the years I have collected about 2/3 lb of grubbly bits of tallow soaps that were just getting too small and I put them aside. Whatever shall I do with the bits? Do I shave them up and add them to the next batch? Not wanting to waste them, but what can I do with them?
  10. DirtyKnuckles

    Deer tallow soap is brittle

    I am not sure if it was my processing or the recipe, but this batch turned out to be pretty brittle. Not that I am prone to dropping the soap, but when it happens, the bar bursts into fragments. It cleans like the dickens, has far less of the tallow smell (new rendering process, less heat...
  11. DirtyKnuckles

    My new packaging

    Sir, your label really shrieks "professional". I see lots of powerful stimuli in it, especially the imagery the name provides. While not "bull of the woods"/Duluth Trading Company/logger dive bar, it's pretty woodsy for guys like me. And definitely tony enough that you'd expect to see it in...
  12. DirtyKnuckles

    I usually don't take requests...

    Thanks Misschief. Skimmed the whole 12 pages of conversation and am suitably inundated with information. And kinda loving the look of KiwiMoose's soda ashy molded bars, love the aged denim look.
  13. DirtyKnuckles

    I usually don't take requests...

    ...and with my singing voice I NEVER get requests. But someone heard me talking about making tallow soap and asked if I would like to try making a castile soap. At first I was hesitant, but after reading some stuff about how castile soaps were valued in colonial times, I am interested. I have...
  14. DirtyKnuckles

    Tallow ho!

    Yes, the tallow I use comes from the deer I have hunted. I feel a strong ethical call to utilize as much of the animal as is humanly possible. The hide goes to a friend that makes brain-tan leather, the longer sinews are used in making cordage or backings on handmade wood bows, shorter sinew...
  15. DirtyKnuckles

    DOS Query

    The recipe is at the top of my thread "Tallow Ho!" But here it is for convenience: 1175 grams pure deer tallow 152 grams Rooto brand sodium hydroxide drain cleaner 540 grams water
  16. DirtyKnuckles

    Tallow ho!

    Ok, washed up using this batch today. Virtually NO suds, but it did clean my hands nicely. I seem to remember the last batch several years ago also included some OO. I think someone here had told me to try adding OO to increase the sudsing action. Wondering about rebatching this into a small...
  17. DirtyKnuckles

    DOS Query

    So it looks like this would have a score of 18 when adding the Linoleic and Linolenic levels. I put a bar to the test washing my hands this morning. Virtually NO suds. I am thinking the last soap I did had some OO added just for that purpose.
  18. DirtyKnuckles

    DOS Query

    Thanks Fellow Member of the Not So Secret Ginger Society (NSSGS)! I intend to stay with making the deer tallow base soaps for the foreseeable future, since I am not into soaping for soaping sake, but because it is a useful skill and a way to make a more efficient use of the animals I harvest...
  19. DirtyKnuckles

    Guilty Pleasures?

    Indeed, he is. He has lived in my home with me for 9 years. He (and the other birds under Federal Permit and in my care) have provided conservation education in 5 states and almost a thousand presentations.
  20. DirtyKnuckles

    DOS Query

    So, if I render my deer trimmings fresh, store the rendered tallow in the freezer, then make soap from tallow that is NOT rancid...I am not going to end up with DOS, right? The references I am seeing for DOS are confusing to me. And yes, while I may pose my questions in a wry or quirky manner...
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