armour lard..

thesoapfairy · Mar 7, 2012

so i searched armour lard on here to see if it could be used in soap. a lot of people on here said they used it all the time with no problems so i went ahead and got a lb. from my local grocery store to test it out. (exp date is next year) i made 2 batches of soap with it so far and both smell AWFUL.. it smells like rotten meat or something.. i don't know. when soaping, they smelled just fine, after unmolding they smelled fine as well, it's about 2 days into cure now though.. should i chuck these god awful batches or let them cure out and hope the scent goes away? what did i do wrong?

IrishLass · Mar 7, 2012

I would definitely let it cure for longer. Two days old is way too soon in my opinion to decide to toss a batch. I make it a point with my own batches to not make any final judgements until at least 4 weeks have gone by. The longer one makes soap, the more one is surprised at what miracles a good cure can achieve.

IrishLass

thesoapfairy · Mar 7, 2012

thanks irishlass, you're a great help! i'm going to have to find a different room to store them in, though :lol:

falldowngobump · Mar 7, 2012

Sorry to hear of your problems with the lard. I've used that brand on several occasions (cheap and at Walmart) and have never had any issues with a smell. I've used it at 30% or so in several recipes. I melt it low and slow, keeping the temp below 120 degrees. I read somewhere if lard goes above 120 it will smell in the soap---don't know if this is true, but I keep it below 120 just in case.

FOhoarder · Mar 7, 2012

Thats what I use in my lard soaps and never had any smell issues. I make my 100% lard laundry soap with it and no issues at all. Maybe it did overheat or you got a bad batch. It's smelling up your entire room? Something went wrong for sure. :?

thesoapfairy · Mar 7, 2012

thanks for the replies everyone! i think the overheating might've caused it.. i use tallow very frequently from soaper's choice and i just pop that in the microwave for ages; never gives me a smell any stronger than a faint hamburger smell (lol!) which completely goes away after adding fragrance. one of these lard batches was ungelled, one was forced to gel, and both smell just as bad so i'm not sure about that. it's just strange that there's no smell until a few days after it's unmolded. crossing my fingers it'll fade out!