I made this high-lard recipe:
75% Lard
20% CO
5% Castor
Used distilled water that I infused with sweetgrass to make a deep green "tea". 31% lye solution concentration, 2% superfat. Tetrasodium EDTA powder at 0.5% of the soap (fat + lye + water) weight. Sweetgrass FO from Nature's Garden. No sugar, milk, etc., although I suspect the sweetgrass contributed some sugars. Batter was probably in the 110-120 deg F. The recipe traced slowly -- plenty of time to do fancy work, had I been so inclined.
I added a tiny titch of green ultramarine to part of the batter in a lame attempt at doing an in-the-pot swirl. My coloring didn't work, as you can see from the pic of this soap -- I learned I didn't add nearly enough to change the color enough to matter. The green is basically all from the sweetgrass infusion. So far the color from the sweetgrass is holding, but I don't expect it to last. Dried sweetgrass bleaches out with time to a golden tan (see other pic), so I expect that's what will happen to the color of the soap too.
Very good lather after 4 weeks of cure -- nice blend of dense suds and fluffy bubbles. I'd give this recipe an "A+" grade for lather. I like the initial hardness of the soap as well -- the soap easy to unmold and cut.
The soap happily gelled without being insulated or CPOP'ed. At first, I covered the molded soap with a tea towel and set out on the counter while I cleaned up. I had planned to put it into my cold oven for feline and canine safety, but when I finished cleaning up, I noticed the top was cracking slightly, so I set the mold on a wire rack and put a fan on it to cool it down.
Like Susie said about her high-lard soap, I expect this will become one of my go-to recipes. Up to this point, my go-to base recipes had 50% to 60% lard and 13% to 17% coconut with castor and some mix of olive, HO safflower, and/or avocado making up the balance. I like the simplicity of the recipe, how nicely the batter behaved when soaping, and the lather and skin feel of the bar.
