100% beef tallow soap

[Vicki C]

I have been working with a local farm to make soap with their beef tallow and lard. After some experimenting I settled on a recipe with 50% lard, 20% tallow, 25% coconut, and 5% castor. I used 10% KOH, 90% NaOH, 5% superfat.
The same customer is looking for a 100% unscented tallow soap. I’ve been looking around on SMF and elsewhere - but I’m still unsure how to tackle this. It seems like it will be super brittle and not sudsy. Higher percentage of KOH? I usually add sorbitol to my lye but not sure they even want that. I’ll ask.
Your thoughts?

 

[Arimara]

It couldn't hurt to make an 100% tallow soap like you normally do. Just keep the batch small. This could also be a learning point for the farm owners as well.

 

[BWt]

Just made 100% tallow bar for grandson. Added a small bit of spun ivory colored alpaca wool to lye mix.
This soap has marvelous lather rich and compact. Very gentle on skin.
Could also try adding silk. I used alpaca as grandson is on a carnivore diet.

 

[Vicki C]

Just made 100% tallow bar for grandson. Added a small bit of spun ivory colored alpaca wool to lye mix.
This soap has marvelous lather rich and compact. Very gentle on skin.
Could also try adding silk. I used alpaca as grandson is on a carnivore diet.

May I ask what your superfat was? All NaOH?

 

[BWt]

May I ask what your superfat was? All NaOH?

Here is recipe from SoapCalc as a pdf file. All NaOH. Easy to make. I did insulate it in blankets to gel overnight as I do every one of my soaps. My grandson loves it, my daughter loves it. And so do I! I was absolutely amazed at the lovely lather. Not at all sure what the last minute addition of alpaca fiber did but it did not seem to hurt the soap. I am looking today to see if I saved a bar (which I thought I did.). If so will post a picture.
Recipe:
Lye Concentration 33%
Tallow Beef 31.50 ounces/893.01 grams
Water 8.66 ounces/245.62 grams
Lye NaOH 4.27 ounces/120.98 grams
Super Fat 5%
Water as percent of oil weight 27.50 %
Water Lye Ratio: 2.0303:1
NO FRAGRANCE was added. Grandson requested no fragrance

 

[BWt]

@Vicki C How about tallow lip balm. use a teeny bit of beeswax to bind the tallow and a bit of vitamin e. I tried only tallow but it melts in the warm weather.
Or tallow body butter. Found recipes on line for whipping 100% tallow. It’s supposed to be excellent for sensitive skin.
Tallow lotion bar? Why not?

 

[AliOop]

What a great opportunity, @Vicki C -you are building such a great client base!

I agree that 100% tallow bars are lovely! TBH, they can be hard to the point of brittle, and they can take a little work to get the lather started.

If these customers won’t do sorbitol, I’d ask if they are OK with local honey or maple syrup instead. If that’s still a no-go, I’d do 90% NaOH, 10% KOH so they lather more freely.

Keep the SF low bc 100% tallow (or lard, for that matter) can produce a lot of soap scum. A chelator is nice if they’d be ok with that.

 

[Mobjack Bay]

With 2% lauric and 6% myristic FAs (according to the SMF c@lc) tallow should, in theory, make a nice gentle lather. These two FAs are essentially missing from lard (0% lauric, 1% myristic, same calculator source).

Here’s another vote for tallow balm/lotion bars. The bars I made a few months ago have become my favorite for personal use, including an unscented bar that I use on my lips. My last order of tallow was on the soft side and after playing around with ratios, I settled on 75% tallow and 25% beeswax. At that ratio and in my environs, the bar is not sticky and glides well.

 

[The_Phoenix]

I make a foot balm using tallow and it’s lovely. Definitely want to try it in a lip balm.

 

[Vicki C]

These are such great ideas! I’m going to suggest lotion bars, and I will play with some soap recipes. Thank you all!

 

[Mobjack Bay]

After unexpectedly having a request last week for soap with no coconut oil, today’s the day to make my first batch of 100% tallow soap. I decided to start with dual lye, 90:10, because the 50% palmitic + stearic in the recipe scares me

 

[Ladka]

When I use 100 % beef tallow I always make it a dual lye and add sugar for bubbles. I like it very much: it is gentle to my skin, not brittle at all, produces enough lather and bubbles. It is quite popular with those I either donate to or sell.

 

[Mobjack Bay]

When I use 100 % beef tallow I always make it a dual lye and add sugar for bubbles. I like it very much: it is gentle to my skin, not brittle at all, produces enough lather and bubbles. It is quite popular with those I either donate to or sell.

Oh good, because I added sugar to mine along with the dual lye.

 

[contrinokathy]

After unexpectedly having a request last week for soap with no coconut oil, today’s the day to make my first batch of 100% tallow soap. I decided to start with dual lye, 90:10, because the 50% palmitic + stearic in the recipe scares me

You can always use babassu in place of coconut oil

 

[Mobjack Bay]

You can always use babassu in place of coconut oil

I don’t have babassu handy, but I did have enough PKO in the house to make a batch of ZNSB as another option for a bar without coconut. The 100% tallow bar was already on my list of to-dos so I left that recipe alone.

 

[contrinokathy]

When I use 100 % beef tallow I always make it a dual lye and add sugar for bubbles. I like it very much: it is gentle to my skin, not brittle at all, produces enough lather and bubbles. It is quite popular with those I either donate to or sell

Wow what a great tip. Thanks for the 95/5 ratio. I make 85%evoo/15%neem oil soap yesterday dual lye hot process and it’s incredible

 

[contrinokathy]

Dual lye hot process 85% olive oil soap. Rock hard after 12 hours and lovely lather. Wow

 

[contrinokathy]

Lather from yesterdays soap. Creamy and with big bubbles. I added some potato powder. Incredible

 

[Mobjack Bay]

@Vicki C Did you make the 100% tallow soap? I’ve been testing mine, which I made with 10% KOH. It’s okay, but it’s not what I would call lovely. The bar will make lather if I work at it, but even with dual lye it’s a very hard bar of soap. In use the bar is so slick that it’s hard to hold on to, which is not at all what I expected. It’s like hard shiny plastic coated with a film of soap. I wonder if my hard water is a contributing factor? Maybe I need to up the KOH for the next batch?

eta: I’ve been scouring the threads and have seen cautions about exceeding 10% KOH, but based on the firmness of the soap, I think I would have better results using 13-15%. The KOH I’m using has been fine in other soap recipes with the purity set at 90%. On the other hand, I just recently bought a new box of tallow and noticed right away that it’s a bit harder than the tallow I was using over the last year. Perhaps that’s a contributing factor and I’m ending up with less than the calculated SF, which was set at 3% for the initial batch. I could make two small test batches, one with 15% KOH and 3% SF and one with 10% KOH and 6% SF for comparison. If anyone has any other ideas or suggestions, please let me know. I will report back!

 

[contrinokathy]

@Vicki C Did you make the 100% tallow soap? I’ve been testing mine, which I made with 10% KOH. It’s okay, but it’s not what I would call lovely. The bar will make lather if I work at it, but even with dual lye it’s a very hard bar of soap. In use the bar is so slick that it’s hard to hold on to, which is not at all what I expected. It’s like hard shiny plastic coated with a film of soap. I wonder if my hard water is a contributing factor? Maybe I need to up the KOH for the next batch?

eta: I’ve been scouring the threads and have seen cautions about exceeding 10% KOH, but based on the firmness of the soap, I think I would have better results using 13-15%. The KOH I’m using has been fine in other soap recipes with the purity set at 90%. On the other hand, I just recently bought a new box of tallow and noticed right away that it’s a bit harder than the tallow I was using over the last year. Perhaps that’s a contributing factor and I’m ending up with less than the calculated SF, which was set at 3% for the initial batch. I could make two small test batches, one with 15% KOH and 3% SF and one with 10% KOH and 6% SF for comparison. If anyone has any other ideas or suggestions, please let me know. I will report back!

I made a 85%/15% tallow/neem oil 95%/5% sodium/potassium and the soap is incredible. I live in hard water country and I don’t have any problems. I always add beer powder, honey powder or pine rosin powder to up the lather but it’s amazing. It made the same version in a lard/neem recipe, olive oil/neem, and Shea/neem. The olive oil and Shea are the ones I love the best. I use the olive oil/neem for my hair and it is amazing.
I love this so much I am including them in many of my soaps. It is a great technique for one or two ingredient recipes. I have attached the video of the lather immediately after taking the soap out of the crockpot.